


For the Love of a Triangle

by Cinnamonbookworm



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, PJO Big Bang, post botl, post tdd, pre tlo, really lost pizza delivery guy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 22:24:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2523872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamonbookworm/pseuds/Cinnamonbookworm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small story set in the winter between the Battle of the Labyrinth and the Last Olympian. <br/>"The worst part about falling for your best friend is the fact that you can't tell them, not wanting to ruin the friendship. So you're basically forced to keep your biggest secret from the one person you can tell any secret to, and that breaks you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the PJOBIGBANG on tumblr, and therefore has art attatched to it, please see the official PJOBIGBANG tumblr for more information. I do not own PJO or HOO.

For the Love of a Triangle

_A small story set in the winter between_ The Battle of the Labyrinth _and_ The Last Olympian

**Part I: The Rise**

_"Be careful of love. It'll twist your brain around and leave you thinking up is down and right is wrong."_

_-_ Aphrodite, The Titan's Curse

_"The worst part about falling for your best friend is the fact that you can't tell them, not wanting to ruin the friendship. So you're basically forced to keep your biggest secret from the one person you can tell any secret to, and that breaks you."_

_-_ Unknown

**Annabeth I**

Smoke filled the room as she looked around for Percy, the cause of this mess. He was over on the other side of the room trying in vain to locate the source of the smoke. He reached into the oven and pulled out an insanely burnt batch of chocolate chip cookies.

The smoke alarm _finally_ went off as Sally rushed into the room, fire extinguisher in hand, and as Percy was yelling something about _how am I supposed to get my sugar rush now?_ , and she was spraying white foam into the stove, Annabeth thought about how they were having the most fun they've had in a while.

Let's flash back a few hours, shall we? She was with Argus in the van as he drove her from Camp Half- Blood into the city. Sally had called Annabeth up earlier and told her that, if she was not too busy, she should come over to their place since she was sure Percy wanted to call a truce. They had not been speaking for weeks. The last time they had hung out, there had been some big fight about something. Annabeth did not recall the exact details, but she remembered that a certain redhead girl and a certain blonde boy were brought up, and there was the narrowly avoided topic of Mount Saint Helens.

Annabeth had tried to tell herself that she should not go, especially since Percy did not deserve to see her after last time, but there must have been some invisible string tugging at her heart since she ended up at the Jackson house just a little bit before Percy would be home from school.

Sally greeted her with a warm hug, and Annabeth awkwardly placed her tan messenger bag containing Daedalus' laptop (just in case) on the couch next to her and played with her lavender infinity scarf as she waited for him to come home and make him call truce.

Percy stumbled through the door, snowflakes flying off his black hoodie as he swung his backpack off his shoulder. His blue converse stopped dead in their tracks as he stared at Annabeth, sitting on his living room couch and refusing to look at him. She could feel his green eyes on her face, and it took all of her effort t to keep herself from blushing.

Sally was watching him expectantly, and finally he sighed, threw his hands up into the air, and asked the blonde, "Truce?"

Annabeth pretend to consider it for a moment before grumbling, "Fine."

"There's cookie mix and blue foot coloring on the counter if you guys want to do something," Sally told them before leaving the room to go work on what Annabeth supposed was the novel Percy had told her about once before.

They sat there awkwardly on his couch and she tried to keep herself from focusing on how easy it would be to grab his hand, and thinking that he probably did not want her to, promptly try to shove the thoughts from her mind. Gods, he was adorable. Not wanting to swim in the uncomfortable silence any longer, Annabeth decide to break it.

"Come on, Kelp Face, let's go make some cookies."

Somehow, they ended up with blue food dye and chocolate chip cookie batter covering their fingers, half of the cookie batter in the over, and the other half in their mouths and the bowl. They got to talking again and it seemed like old times, and for more than a few moments, Annabeth felt like they were _normal_. Normal people without a Rachel Elizabeth Dare, or a Luke Castellan, or a Kronos. They were just normal people, just normal best friends in that normal relationship that happens every now and then where one falls in love with the other so hard that it's almost frustrating.

Annabeth was throwing a handful of cookie batter at Percy and he was trying to catch it in his mouth when the smoke started to pour from the oven, leaving them off where they started. Even though the entire scene was on the verge of panic, she felt comfortable and safe in it somehow. Fond memories of this kitchen circled around them from the other times she had come over the years. The time that they'd nearly blown up the apartment next door, the time when she'd introduced Percy to the world of bad eighties movies. She missed when everything was so simple.

When the smoke cleared and the burnt cookies were thrown away, Sally left the two of them alone again after announcing that the small fire caused more damage to the cookies than the oven. They sat on the couch together again, the bowl of leftover batter between them and spoons in their hands.

Even though the dreaded conversation was nothing but amicable, Annabeth could practically feel tension rising from the floorboards. She desperately tried to hang onto the moment, but Percy ruined it by bringing up _Rachel_.

"Oh, well it's nice to know you're having _so much fun_ with _darling_ Rachel. We _wouldn't_ want you to feel like you don't have _any_ friends, now would we?" Annabeth retorted for some reason. She could not explain why she did it, but she just _couldn't_ let him bring her up nonchalantly, like she was also a normal part of his life. She was not, she _couldn't be_. This was _their_ little world, their party that Rachel Elizabeth Dare was certainly not invited to. Yet, still, Annabeth ruined their little world, it crumbling at the seams as Percy started to get defensive.

"Stop being like this, Annabeth! It's not like… I know I have friends… It's just sometimes I need normal…"

"Well you're not _normal_ , Percy, and neither am I, and neither is Grover or Tyson or anyone who actually _cares_ about you! _This_ _right here_ is the closest you're _ever_ going to get! Gods, Percy, why can't you just stop being so thickheaded for once…"

" _She_ cares about me, much more than you seem to at the moment!"

"She's _not_ in love with you, Percy! She's in love with this _idea_ of you as some big, strong, perfect hero! Well, guess what? You're not!"

"Who said _anything_ about being in love? And what do you mean I'm not a hero! Did I not hold up enough skies for you, or blow up enough mountains? I know, how about we go outside now and turn on some cell phones, then you can see how much of a not-hero I am!"

"Percy! I didn't mean it like that! Gods! I just meant that she doesn't see you the way she's supposed to!"

"Than what did you mean? How is she _supposed_ to see me?" Annabeth felt infuriated; he just didn't _get_ it, he didn't _get_ anything. He just walked around every day like a clueless idiot, not even bothering to look back at where he'd stepped to see the havoc he caused just by walking by. He had no idea how her heart raced just when he walked by. He had no idea of the wasps nest that was buzzing in her stomach as they yelled at each other.

"The way I do _,"_ Annabeth whispered, turned away from him. Percy was not supposed to hear her, but she was pretty sure he did anyway because they both went silent. She turned back to him, trying to keep herself from tearing up as she grabbed her bag.

"I have to go, Percy." she told him coldly. "Go hang out with Rachel or something. Maybe _then_ you can feel more _normal_."

Annabeth stomped out of the apartment complex and into the snow, her mind absolutely fuming. _What was wrong with him? Didn't he realize_ anything? _What was the point of coming here if it wouldn't accomplish anything except for make her upset?_

She knew those were not the real questions that were bothering her, though. The real question that was bothering her was _why him?_ Why did it have to be him that made her heart crumble like asbestos ceiling tiles and that made her brain feel like she was a smart-phone that had just fallen into a pool. She still had some of the blue chocolate chip cookie batter on her fingers and she shoved it off into the snow. Annabeth was not sure how to feel about all of this.

She was so distracted in her own thoughts that she didn't even realize until she was back into the van with Argus that she was still holding one of the spoons, which happened to be absolutely covered in sticky and sweet blue chocolate chip cookie batter. The daughter of Athena quickly ate it before she could spend too much time thinking about it. One of Argus' sky-blue eyes saw her though, and he gave her a knowing glance.

"Oh, shut up." Annabeth told him, before shoving the spoon into her messenger bag. She knew he didn't need a hundred eyes to see that he was blushing. "Now let's go deliver those strawberries like Chiron asked us to, so he doesn't get suspicious as to why I'm up here so often." She pulled a crate, reading "Delphi's Strawberry Service" to her lap, and sat in the van, extremely frustrated, as Argus drove to the spot where Annabeth was supposed to drop the strawberries off.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annabeth came to a conclusion the next morning...  
> Maybe if she could fix everyone else's problems, she could fix her own too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part I: The Rise  
> "Be careful of love. It'll twist your brain around and leave you thinking up is down and right is wrong."  
> -Aphrodite, The Titan's Curse  
> "The worst part about falling for your best friend is the fact that you can't tell them, not wanting to ruin the friendship. So you're basically forced to keep your biggest secret from the one person you can tell any secret to, and that breaks you."  
> -Unknown

**Annabeth II**

Annabeth came to a conclusion the next morning as she was doing cabin inspection in the mostly-empty camp. A cup of coffee in one hand and a clipboard in the other, she tried to balance a pen behind her ear as she creaked open the infamous ochre-tinted wooden door of the Aphrodite Cabin.

Silena sat on the top of her bunk eating chocolates and listening to her iPod. The cabin, of course, was spotless, yet somehow Silena seemed messy. Her hair and clothes were spotless and nice as usual, her makeup was perfect, but she had not been standing by the door wide awake and doe-eyed as usual.

"Um, hey…" Annabeth said. Silena looked over at her with a nod, but not her usual happy attitude.

Annabeth cringed inwardly with awkwardness. She was never one for girl talks. Even her school friends knew that. If they did talk to Annabeth about a break up or something along those lines, she was more likely to punch their exes in the face than to give them a consolation talk. Annabeth was a mess with feelings, especially when it came to her own, but Silena had always been one for a kind word or meaningful smile, and she knew that her conscious would bother her indefinitely if she didn't at least attempt to try and find out what was wrong.

"Are you… okay?" The other girl looked over at her with big blue eyes, and Annabeth noticed an unusual clump of mascara on her eyelash. It was like Silena's usual talent at makeup had failed her slightly today.

"Drew was right." Silena said, her voice cracking halfway. "You lose mom's trust when you fail the right of passage. It's just… I couldn't… Charlie…" Tears started streaming down her face, not even smudging the most-likely waterproof mascara. Annabeth felt herself stiffen up, but resolved to hold her ground.

"Um…Drew's a _skýla_." She felt herself slip into Greek, not wanting to actually use English to insult the other daughter of Aphrodite. Even so, it almost felt like she was asking a question. Gods, she was bad at this. "I'm sure whatever's going on with Beckendorf is just some big misunderstanding… right?"

"Drew's actually not that bad." Silena replied, being the better person even in her despair, "She really has a lot going on at home. Besides, I mean I thought we were official since we went to the fireworks together last summer and stuff but… well… I don't know. I hadn't heard from him since the end of summer, and I decided to come here because I wanted to see him but he's just always out in the woods with that bronze dragon or working on something and I just never get to see him. Also, I guess the fireworks didn't mean anything, because you and Percy went together and that did absolutely nothing… I just. I _clumped my mascara_ , Annabeth. I _clumped_ it."

"It's only one clump…" Although she knew Silena had not meant it offensively, the comment about the fireworks stung a place deep inside her heart where she didn't like to spend a lot of time. Still, the situation itself was starting to get almost unbearable, as Annabeth had zero to no experience comforting crying girls about boy problems, probably why she tried to avoid crying about them herself.

"I might as well have been disowned!" Silena cried, sobbing into her pillow. Her pale legs, which were currently covered by tribal-pattern leggings, flailed up and down from the knees as she cried, as if she was trying to backstroke the pain away.

Annabeth didn't have anything much to add to the conversation, so she just marked down on her clipboard the score for the cabin, perfect as usual, before moving on to the next ones.

Silena's problems kept bugging her as she tried to go along with her day, though. Well, not _exactly_ Silena's problem, but more so the problem that they both shared: What did going to the fireworks with someone actually mean? For years and years she'd looked at the Fourth of July at camp as a time for excitement and dates, and other things along those lines. For years and years she'd watched older campers get together at the fireworks. They sealed the deal. Once you went with someone, that was it; you were a couple. Now though, looking back, Annabeth realized her view of the situation might've been a bit more than a little warped.

If a daughter of Aphrodite, of all people, had not sealed the deal by going to the fireworks with someone, what made Annabeth think it would have been different for her? She had thought that summer that maybe, just maybe, Percy would forget about Rachel so that things would work out for her for _once_ in her life. And he almost had; they would get so close, it would seem like the weeks of fighting hadn't even happened, and then one of them would bring up Luke, or Rachel and everything would just collapse around them. She was walking on fractured glass, and any second the floor would go through and she would fall through that awful, horrible void that was missing him while simultaneously wondering whether or not she was even good enough for someone as wonderful as he was.

It had gotten worse since Percy went back to school. He saw Rachel _every single day_. Annabeth only saw him on the occasional weekend that they were not fighting monsters and/or each other, and even then, the conversation felt forced and almost always ended in another fight.

All this was running through her mind as she checked the remaining cabins. Most of them were empty, or at least almost empty, seeing as most kids only came to camp during the summer. She kept up a calm and collected disposition as she tried to get through the cabin inspection, but as soon as it was over, Annabeth gave the clipboard back to Chiron and quickly ran to the arena, her boots crushing the light layer of snow that Mr. D had allowed to fall. She shed her black winter jacket, revealing the orange Camp Half Blood tanks that the gift shop sold, and felt the slight sting of cold on her arms, but she knew it would go away as soon as she started fighting.

Annabeth normally fought with a knife, but when she got fuming, she liked to try other weapons to keep her mind off of a subject that was slowly encasing it in a layer of poisonous gas. She grabbed a spear from the bin of training weapons off to the side of the arena. She ran at the dummy, the spear not feeling quite right in her hands, and tried to spear it in a chink of its armor, but her anger distracted her.

This was _not_ how she was supposed to be feeling. She was _Annabeth Chase_. She walked all over most of the boys at her school, and the boys at camp knew that she would barely tolerate their flirting. Why was she letting sea-green eyes and a sense of humor get the best of her? Anger flared behind her eyes ,but she wasn't sure if it was from missing the target, or hating herself, or if it was just about the fact that she regretted waving a hand through every single Iris Message that Percy had tried to send her after one of their big fights. That boy had probably gone through more drachmas than he even owned trying to apologize to her for something he didn't even do, or at least something he didn't even know he did to her.

She ran at the dummy once again, aiming for the neck, but her spear bounced off of the top of the dummy's bronze breastplate. She cursed, and then spun around quickly as she saw a pair of eyes watching her.

"What are _you_ looking at?" She almost yelled in frustration as the form of Clarisse La Rue stared down at her from the wall surrounding the arena.

"Well, _someone's_ in a bad mood." Clarisse picked at her nails, covered in peeling red polish that Annabeth presumed Silena had painted on her at one point or another.

" _Really?_ How could you _possibly_ tell?"

"For starters, you're holding the spear all wrong. While _I_ get the idea of using rage to fight, it obviously isn't working for _you_."

Annabeth threw the spear on the ground in frustration. She was not used to fighting with one. She had been trying out a sword for the past few months, but she had gotten bored with it quickly. "How are you supposed to hold it then?"

Clarisse jumped down the 4-foot wall into the arena, her electric spear crackling in her hand, and came over to Annabeth. She showed her the fingerless leather gloves she was wearing. "First of all, Princess, spear fighting involves a ton of decisive movement. You can _not_ afford to get a blister or let the spear slip out of your hands. I usually use _these_ to keep my grip. Your problem _,_ though, is that you're trying to hold the spear way too high up." Clarisse flipped Maimer around to showcase her grip. "You need to keep it balanced."

Following Clarisse's advice, Annabeth quickly changed her grip and aimed at the dummy again. Once again, she did not even make a mark. "It's not helping," she growled, sure she sounded whiny.

"Now, I'm probably not an expert on… _whatever_ it is you're going through," Clarisse started, her tone becoming only slightly less rough, "but seeing as our resident expert is locked up in her cabin listening to depressing 8tracks playlists, I'm guessing that it's not your lack of ability to fight with a spear that's bothering you."

"You're right, you're _not_ an expert," the blonde retorted, getting into a close-contact position with the dummy and making sure that the spear actually was sharp enough to work. "And since when do you have an interest in the social aspects of my life?"

"I don't," Clarisse admitted, "but Silena needs help solving the mess she's in, and it is up to me, her best friend, to make sure that you, our best strategist, is not in one of her moods, because when _you're_ in a mood, you get everyone _else_ in camp in a mood."

Annabeth rolled her eyes at that notion, but made a mental note to check how her moods affected the other campers next time she found herself in one. "And why exactly do I _not_ need to be in a mood?"

"Because my best friend is already in a mood, you're not helping her, and, in consequence, you're going to help me fix Silena, that's why. That girl hasn't been right in the head since her prissy cabin mate Iris Messaged her last night before dinner, and I'm positive there's something going on deeper than her mooning over some boy. You're good at getting clues when you're not moody or distracted, and I'm good at beating up punks who mess with Silena, so we're working together on this case." The daughter of Athena wasn't sure when she'd ever heard Clarisse utter the words _in consequence_ , but she assumed the daughter of Ares might have started watching some law and crime show, and that just might be the reason that her vocabulary had suddenly improved.

"Clarisse, you're making it sound like we're detectives in some 40's crime drama," Annabeth said. "I haven't even agreed to do anything yet. Maybe _I_ want to stay here and practice with the spear. Maybe _I_ don't want to get involved with some silly camp drama that will pass over in a few days."

At this, Clarisse's eyes turned a more violent shade of brown than usual. "Listen here, _princess_ , and listen good, because you may think you can do whatever in Hades you want because you're Chiron's favorite and your boyfriend is probably the child of the prophecy, but you are _not_ allowed to talk about Silena's pain like it's some sort of soap opera. You're _going_ to help me with this, or I'm going to pulverize you right here on the straw floor of this arena. You got that?"

"I—what makes you think that I'm… what makes you think you can…" Annabeth was too flushed by the boyfriend comment and too tired from almost a full night of searching through Daedalus' laptop for battle strategies to even consider getting into a fight with Clarisse. They were pretty evenly matched when they were both at the peak of both mental and physical health, but Annabeth knew the burly brunette would follow through with her threat, and she probably wouldn't be able to hold up against her on the limited sleep she'd gotten. " _Fine_ ," Annabeth sighed. "But don't expect me to be happy about this."

Clarisse let out a contented grunt and proceeded to drag the other girl by the arm from the arena to the circle of cabins and to the door of the only cabin in the entire camp that perpetually smelled of Chanel No. 5 and was painted the color of Pepto Bismol.

"Why exactly are we stopping here?" Annabeth asked, almost choking on the excessive amount of perfume that covered the cabin like a layer of icing on a cake. She usually went through the doorway quickly during cabin inspection, so as not to have to smell too much of it, but just standing outside it with Clarisse, examining it, made her want to puke.

"We need to get a testimony from the victim herself. She may not admit all that we need to know, but that's why we'll look for clues inside afterwards." Both girls stepped back for a moment to take huge breaths of fresh air before plunging headfirst into the unfamiliar world of the Aphrodite cabin.

Silena was still lying in the top bunk with her head buried into a mauve pillow and her long black locks spilling out over it. A half-empty box of chocolates lay next to her, as did her pink-cased iPod, which had volume on high enough for Annabeth to hear just hints of the music Silena was listening to. It did nothing for her already bad mood. Whoever wrote songs that were supposed to make people sad probably didn't have an empathetic bone in their body. What compelled Silena to listen to something like this if it was certain to only make her more upset?

Clarisse walked over to the bunk, gentler than Annabeth had ever seen her be with anything else, and whispered a greeting to the sobbing girl. Silena looked up, the clump of mascara from that morning still there, surrounding her pale blue eyes. A too-big pink sweater was falling off of one of her pale shoulders, and once again, she looked like an absolutely fashionable mess. "You okay?" Clarisse asked.

The daughter of Aphrodite shrugged her pale shoulders, "The clump's still there." She wiped at her tears with the sleeve of her fluffy sweater. She was still sobbing, although Annabeth was utterly astounded that instead of the heaving sobs that most normal people experienced when crying, Silena Beauregard gave out soft, could-like sighs that almost forced you to pity her.

"Look," Clarisse started, "I know you talked with Drew last night. Would you mind sharing the details of that conversation with us?"

"Us?" Silena asked, and then looked over at the doorway to see an uncomfortable Annabeth leaning cautiously against the doorframe of the cabin. "Oh." She knew she wasn't totally welcome, and honestly, she didn't even want to be there, but Clarisse had dragged her along, and Silena would probably piece that together eventually, still, it probably didn't help that Annabeth had a reputation of not helping people when they were in pain.

"We're trying to help you here. We just need to know what Drew told you last night."

"Oh." Silena's voice was quieter than usual, with no squeals or other sounds of joy. "Well, we didn't really talk about much. I just asked her how that fancy school in Brooklyn was working out for her and she bragged about her Christmas presents and her boyfriend."

Annabeth knew she had to be patient with the seemingly helpless girl on top of the bunk, but she knew that none of that stuff would help this 'investigation' be done any faster. "Was there anything else she said? Maybe about Beckendorf, or…"

As soon as his name left her mouth, Silena started sobbing again, and Clarisse shot her a dirty look. This was exactly why Annabeth usually never got involved with these sorts of things; she had always end up somehow not recognizing which words could trigger yet another set of tears.

Silena managed to get a hold of herself for a moment, however, and mumbled, "Well, she did mention something about a quest that Mom wanted me to go on, but that maybe I should stay at camp because Mom didn't know I'd failed my right of passage. That doesn't matter anyway, because mom already knows, hence the clump." And with that, Silena fell on her pillow in sobs again, and no amount of prodding from Clarisse would get her to say any more.

"Thanks a lot," the daughter of Ares grunted as she and Annabeth made their way around the cabin, looking for the pile of Drew's things that she had left at camp at the end of summer. In the middle back of the cabin sat a bed with silk sheets with the initials D.T. embroidered on them, which was definitely not camp-standard, but there was nothing worth helping their case.

She turned back to her companion. "Clarisse," she started, "what exactly are we doing? Even if we knew that Drew _had_ said something to Beckendorf, what does that have anything to do with making Silena feel better? If anything, it'll probably make her feel worse."

"I just need to know what exactly she said to him. If that _skýla_ told him _anything_ about him being Silena's rite of passage, I'm going to chop her up to shish-kabob size pieces, skewer her with Maimer, and roast her—"

"Well, why don't we ask Nyssa, or one of the other Hephaestus cabin members? Maybe they've heard something."

"It's worth a shot." Clarisse responded, dropping a bottle of _East Indian Mermaid Tears Perfume_ back down onto the dresser where it had sat with disgust.

They quietly walked back out of Cabin 10, not wanting to disturb Silena in her misery, and made their way across the circle of cabins over to the forges, where the Hephaestus cabin was most likely hanging out.

Nyssa greeted them at the door. A short, curvy girl, she had grease stains covering her Camp Half Blood t-shirt, and really, the rest of her too. An olive green bandana held back her dark, oily hair, and she waved at the two girls, a wrench in hand, as they came through the door.

Annabeth noticed Beckendorf was forging something by himself in the corner. He looked secluded and sad. Certainly not as sad as Silena currently was, of course, but still more closed off than usual.

"What's up with _him_?" Clarisse asked Nyssa with a grunt. Annabeth knew her partner already knew what was up with Beckendorf, but still opened her mouth, about to protest Clarisse's rudeness when Nyssa responded. The daughter of Hephaestus was from the New Jersey area, with Italian blood, and it shone obviously in the way that she talked. Even as she answered Clarisse, Annabeth could only picture what the rest of Nyssa's family might be like. She guessed they were probably also slightly short and tough, people probably didn't want to mess with them. Even as Nyssa was helping them ever so sweetly, Annabeth never forgot how tough the brunette could be when she wanted to.

"In all honesty, I'm not sure. Drew stopped by camp a few days ago with an order for a magical item or something. She was discussing some of the plans with Beckendorf and then when she'd left, he stopped smiling and joking with all of us and just kind of sat there working on Drew's order. We sent Drew the order by the Hermes Cabin's delivery service last night, and I thought that would make him feel better, but he's just as bad as he has been. All I could get out of him was that Drew wanted a magical lipstick taser, and nothing else." Nyssa bit her lip. Annabeth could tell she really was concerned about the well-being of her brother.

"If you want we can talk to him," she coaxed.

"You can try…" The daughter of Hephaestus trailed off. "Anyway, what did you guys come in for?"

"It can wait," Clarisse said, making her way over to the bench in the back corner of the forge where Charles Beckendorf was working. "Okay, listen up punk," Clarisse started, her fist coming close to Beckendorf's face, "Silena's been sobbing in her cabin for two days. I wanna know what in _Tartarus you did to her_."

Annabeth opened her mouth in shock. Most campers were terrified of Beckendorf, even though he'd barely hurt a fly without a valid reason. She assumed it was mostly because of his giant muscles from countless hours in the forges. "Clarisse, I really don't think that's any way to…"

The brunette cut her off, "If I hear you touched a _hair_ on her beautiful little head, you're going to _wish_ Kronos had gotten into camp last summer when I'm done with you…" Clarisse continued listing the may possible ways that she would kill Beckendorf if he had hurt Silena in any way when the burly older guy whispered out a response.

"I didn't do anything to her." He whispered, his head hanging low over his workbench. Beckendorf's hands were still fiddling with whatever he was working on, and his discomfort was obvious.

Clarisse snorted, "Now I find _that_ hard to believe, pretty boy. I'm going to ask you again: WHAT DID YOU DO TO SILENA."

This time, Annabeth did feel the need to interject a response. "Clarisse! This is _not_ why we are here!" Then slightly softer to Beckendorf, "What did Drew talk to you about last week? Does it have anything to do with why Silena is crying?"

The other workers of the forge were staring at the three of them now, and Clarisse noticed them, and then proceeded to start shouting at the rest of them. "WHAT ARE YOU PUNKS LOOKING AT?" They quickly went back to work on whatever they had been working on earlier.

"She said ….." Beckendorf grumbled a few things, but they were inaudible.

"What did she say?"

"She said that Silena was only using me for her rite of passage… that she didn't…that she didn't even love me at all… that it was all just an act, and at first I didn't believe her, because she's Drew and all, but I asked around. Will Solace, Connor Stoll, Katie from Apollo, they've all been used like that and… and I kind of blew up at her. I didn't realize she would take it so hard. Okay?" Beckendorf slammed his wrench down on the workbench in frustration.

"I knew it!" This time Annabeth was the one yelling. "That little bit…" She regained her composure, realizing that once again the entire forge was staring at them. "Look, Beckendorf, the _rite of passage_ is a very, very, _very_ old Aphrodite tradition that Drew's trying to re-instate, but seeing as Silena is head counselor, believe me, if it was re-instated, and _if_ on the rare chance Silena was actually going along with it, believe me, Chiron would be having an intervention like he does with Cabin 11 when a camper disappears…"

"So… she's not just playing me?" Beckendorf asked, his voice suddenly quiet.

"NO, SHE WASN'T YOU, LITTLE—"

"Clarisse!"

"Oh gods… I can't believe… she's been crying for _two days_? I have to go fix this somehow."

"You'd better, or so help me, I'll—"

"Clarisse!"

Later, Annabeth assumed that Beckendorf had run to Silena and explained the whole thing to her. They had both probably ignored the no-two-campers-of-different-godly-parents-allowed-in-a-cabin-alone rule. She liked to picture Silena's liked playlists on 8tracks turning from sad songs to stupidly in love songs. Because, if Annabeth wasn't allowed to get a cheesy contemporary novel-esque happily ever after, then someone should, at least in her imagination. Either way, she got no more of Clarisse discussing her love life as they sparred together, and no more cloud-like sobbing as she performed cabin inspection.

Annabeth came to a conclusion that day after Silena and Beckendorf made up and Clarisse described (in gory detail) exactly what she was going to do to Drew when she saw her again: If she was going to deal with every single problem the camp had to offer (including her own), she was going to need more coffee. Exhausted from the day, she stumbled into her cabin to get another cup of coffee, only to find as she was adding the sugar that she was stirring her coffee with the spoon she'd stomped out of Percy's apartment with only the previous week.

She decided to talk to Chiron about yet another visit into the city. Maybe if she could fix everyone else's problems, she could fix her own too.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy was a little bummed out; while his times with Annabeth always ended in fights, his times with Rachel always ended with one of them getting pulled away for one reason or other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part I: The Rise  
> "Be careful of love. It'll twist your brain around and leave you thinking up is down and right is wrong."  
> -Aphrodite, The Titan's Curse  
> "The worst part about falling for your best friend is the fact that you can't tell them, not wanting to ruin the friendship. So you're basically forced to keep your biggest secret from the one person you can tell any secret to, and that breaks you."  
> -Unknown

**Percy I**

Percy moved his entire body to the left, following the path of his game console and trying in vain to swerve ahead of Rachel as her cart raced around the track.

All evidence from Annabeth's visit the previous week had been removed. After she had left, Percy had felt like he could not eat another bite of that batter. Currently, it was sitting in the freezer as his and Rachel's Chinese takeout boxes littered the couch.

Rachel's freckled face was twisted into a face of concentration as she raced just a bit ahead of Percy's cart, staying as still as she could while he was flailing around like an idiot. As much as he hated to admit it, Rachel was _way_ better at this game than him. Maybe it was just his ADHD, but he could never concentrate on the game enough to win.

"Ha! I win again!" she called out with a smile as she crossed the finish line. "Your fortune cookie is mine!"

Percy groaned as he tossed her a fortune cookie from the bag beside the couch that contained whatever was left of the food splayed all over the living room. Rachel cracked the cookie open with her paint-stained fingers, laughing, but her smile faded as she read it.

"Your day will be unexpectedly interrupted." She sighed and threw the fortune across the room, shoving the cookie itself into her mouth.

Percy was a little bummed out; while his times with Annabeth always ended in fights, his times with Rachel always ended with one of them getting pulled away for one reason or other. "I'm done with this game, let's see what's on TV," the redhead decided, pulling up the channel guide for the chunky television before them with the remote.

She picked out some obscure show with dragons and royalty and a ton of people dying, and rested her scarlet curls on Percy's shoulder. He felt his heart rate pick up and almost jumped, but tried to be calm. Why did he always get freaked out so much when she did things like this? Annabeth always did stuff like this and it never meant anything. At least, he was pretty sure it didn't. Percy's head started to hurt just thinking about those kinds of things, and so he lost himself in the TV show, feeling Rachel's heartbeat next to his, and soon they both fell asleep.

Percy soon found himself floating above the current campsite of the Hunters of Artemis as they slept soundly, not even noticing as a Scythian Dracaena slithered towards them, leading a pack of demigods who had deserted Camp Half Blood.

He saw Thalia's blue eyes fly open at the crunch of a twig, and the Hunters Assembled. Percy could barely watch as Thalia shot an ex-camper in the throat with her silver arrows, tears in her eyes. The ex-camper fell to the ground with a yelp, and was soon trampled by his fellow soldiers. Percy felt like he was going to throw up.

The dream flashed to a dark scene of Clarisse and some of the other Ares campers on a mission on the water. They were on a zombie ship, much like the one Percy had sailed on in the Sea of Monsters, and Clarisse was shouting orders at the crew as her siblings fired the cabins at the Princess Andromeda. She was shot in the leg by one of the empousa on the other ship and almost collapsed, but somehow continued standing, taking a bazooka in one of her arms and shooting it at every monster she could spot on the other ship like some twisted carnival game. Other members of her cabin tried to run to her, but Clarisse dismissed them, yelling at her siblings to continue fighting and shooting their opponents. _It doesn't matter if I'm hurt,_ she shouted, _there will be plenty of time to heal me by the time we win this thing!_

Finally, he saw Annabeth. Unlike the other scenes, there was nothing bloody or violent, but it made Percy feel worse than ever. She was hunched over Daedalus' laptop, and he could practically hear the gears turning in her head as she scanned some of the projects. Her Yankee's Cap was hanging on a hook next to her, and a still-steaming coffee sat beside her, but it wasn't any of these things that caught his attention.

In the coffee cup sat a metal spoon with a decorative handle. If it was possibly anyone else looking at this scene, they wouldn't understand what was so remarkable about it. Annabeth had stormed out of the apartment, she had quickly slashed her dry hand through any Iris Message Percy had tried to send her, and, well…. She had kept the spoon that they'd been eating the dough with. He would have recognized it anywhere; the blue, green, and brown mosaic tiles that always reminded his mom of the cabin at Montauk. Somehow, it just looked _right_ in Annabeth's brown/grey coffee mug.

He started to hear familiar laughter in the background. It seemed on a different plane of existence than the scene he was watching with Annabeth. He could recognize that bell-like laughter anywhere, and started to groan, not wanting to have yet _another_ dream conversation with Aphrodite (it would be the third time since the end of summer), but before any such conversation could happen, Percy's eyes flew open.

He was awoken by the sound of Rachel screaming. She was still asleep, but her mouth was wide open, and the sound coming out sounded almost like a harpy. Percy shook her shoulders quickly to try and wake her up, but she just kept screaming. Finally, her green eyes opened in shock. "What are you doing?" She asked, obviously noticing that Percy's face was almost inches away from hers.

"You were screaming in your sleep. I've almost never heard someone do that before," he said, trying to block out memories of the quest for Artemis when Thalia would scream , whimper, toss, and turn throughout the night. Lots of demigods actually experienced night terrors, but Percy usually took it as a side effect of a life fighting monsters. No mortals usually screamed like that when they were only taking a nap. He wondered if Rachel's life was worse than she let on. As far as he knew, the worst things she went through involved charm schools and lectures from her mother, at least, when she was not hanging out with him. Percy hoped none of their escapades together had given her nightmares.

"It… It's nothing." Rachel shook her mane of curls, and then noticed that her green bandana had fallen off her head while she was sleeping. She reached down to pick it up and then sat down on the floor next to the couch with her bag next to her. "You go ahead and play something. I'm going to draw; usually gets my head cleared after stuff like this happens." Rachel turned away from him, curling her knees to her chest and placing her cream-colored sketchbook on her thighs like they were some sort of easel.

"Wait," Percy interjected, "This happens a lot?"

His expression must have conveyed quite an expression of shock, because Rachel let out a slightly shaky laugh and responded, "More often than you'd expect. It used to be worse when I was younger though."

Percy shrugged, trying to shake the memories of a sleeping, screaming Rachel out of his head ( _it wasn't his fault after all if she'd been experiencing this since she was a child)_ , and pulled the video game controller out from the spot under the couch it must've landed while they were sleeping. He worked on one of the quests in his slightly ironic Greek Hero game, and was in the middle of fighting a badly researched Siren when he noticed the picture that Rachel was drawing in her sketchbook. Percy nearly dropped his game consul in surprise.

It was of someone exploding. The features were so disfigured that Percy could not even make out the gender of the person, but Rachel had gone into such detail anyways. There was fire everywhere and the body itself was almost too gory for Percy to process, which was saying a lot since he had seen some pretty disgusting wounds at Camp Half Blood. If this was what she was dreaming about, Percy could definitely tell why she'd been screaming. In all honesty, he probably would have been too.

Suddenly, Rachel whipped her head around, accusingly, and Percy went back to fighting the animated Siren in the hopes that she would not notice that he'd been spying on her. He barely even noticed the small shadow in the background of the picture jumping away from the explosion, a sword in its shadowy hand.

A few minutes later, Rachel had finished the sketch, crumpled it up, and shoved it into a pocket of her bag, which was painted to look like the cover of an album that Percy did not recognize. "Can you just… forget that happened?" Rachel asked. "If my parents found out I was getting them in the day too, my calendar would be pretty much booked with appointments to therapists."

"Sure," Percy told her, when in reality he was trying to memorize every single detail of that picture she had drawn. They sat in an awkward silence for a while, as Rachel fidgeted and played with her sharpie-covered sneakers.

"Do you want to go get some ice cream?" she asked him, finally. He said yes, shoving Riptide in his pocket. As they were walking out the door, they ran into Percy's mom, who was carrying a brown paper bag of groceries through the hallway. Percy wondered if she was having Paul over for dinner anytime soon. She usually made quite a shopping trip to get different kinds of food before he came over. Percy was glad to see her smiling though; she had been smiling a lot ever since Paul proposed to her. If his mom was going to remarry, Percy supposed, he would rather it be with someone who made her smile a lot.

"Nice to see you again, Rachel." Sally Jackson said with her warm-as-sunshine smile. Then her eyes glanced the trashed living room. "You guys aren't going to leave the living room like this, are you?"

Percy felt himself put on a guilty face, and blushed, humiliated, as he and Rachel walked back into the apartment and started picking up the empty Chinese takeout containers. While they were cleaning, Percy noticed that another one of Rachel's drawings had fallen out of her bag. He uncrumpled the pencil-covered paper as quietly as possible while Rachel was on the other side of the worn out couch and, as he looked at it, his heart almost stopped.

"Hey, Percy," the freckled girl started, "After the ice cream, do you want to check out the Met? We haven't been there in a while." He nearly jumped out of his socks, hoping that she did not realize he was looking at one of her pictures. Percy hated going behind her back like this, but Rachel's drawings had always been kind of… creepy and mysterious… like the mummy who lived in the attic of the Big House at camp.

"Uh… yeah, sure." Percy waved his hand in a 'whatever' gesture, staring hard at the picture in his hands as the long-gone face of Zoë Nightshade stared back at him.

Her eyes were glassy, and Percy felt his heart start to break into a million pieces at the memory of her death. How did Rachel know this? He could not remember telling her. He doubted Annabeth had while they were in the Labyrinth, especially since they were not _that_ close. How had Rachel captured the exact last moment of life that Zoë had ever experienced? _Stars_ , she had said. Percy remembered her voice every time he looked outside at night to see the skyline of New York City. The stars were not usually that visible in the city because of pollution, but the lights of the city looked enough like stars to make his heart hurt. This picture was ten times worse.

The sight of Rachel crawling back around the couch on her hands and knees, slowly picking up grains of rice covered in sauce and shoving them into the trash bag, made Percy quickly shove the picture into the pocket of his worn hoodie, and continue clearing the living room of all evidence that they'd nearly exploded their Chinese food only an hour before. When they finished, Percy and Rachel each grabbed their respective bags, and headed down the long hallway to the elevator that would take them down to the city.

They never made it to the Met. First, they nearly got run over by a cab as they were crossing a street. They technically had not been supposed to cross the street at that time; the red numbers on the street light were at two when they started, but it wasn't a pleasant experience anyway. Then Percy, even though he'd just eaten, got an undeniable craving for ice cream, and not just any ice cream, it had to be from one of the vendors in central park, so they took the underground there, and then spent a good half an hour looking for this mystical ice-cream vendor in the large area that made up Central Park until they finally found it.

There they were, walking along, a chocolate mint cone in Percy's hand (extra sprinkles), and a Napoleon one in Rachel's, when they were, as the fortune cookie had foretold, interrupted by Rachel's cell phone going off. Rachel ignored it the first time… and the second time… and the third time… until finally it went off again as they were turning the corner, and she picked up, looking at Percy and knowing that too much cell phone activity could cause them to get attacked by a monster, and in New York, there was an abundance of them.

As Rachel picked up the phone with an exasperated "Yes, Mom?", the winter air swirling around them suddenly stopped, as did Rachel's voice and everything else around them. Percy could still feel his heart thumping away in his chest, so he was sure that he hadn't just abruptly died, but everything was eerily still and silent, at least until Percy heard the sound of a Michael Buble ballad and the sight of rose petals.

To put it in the least descriptive way possible, he groaned and cursed just as the most gorgeous woman that Percy had ever seen descended from the sky on a rainbow. Aphrodite, as beautiful and indescribable as ever, sauntered over to Percy with a white scarf wrapped around her head and heels so high that Percy thought she might've died of foot pains just from the walk, or float really, over if she hadn't been immortal.

"Now, dear, is that any way to treat a goddess, especially one who likes you? You know there aren't many on the Olympian Council that do nowadays."

Percy tried to make his tone a little less rude. "What do you want?" He gestured around him, unknowingly flailing his mint chocolate ice-cream cone around everywhere and nearly hitting one of the frozen mortals near him in the face, "In case you didn't notice, I'm kind of in the middle of something."

"It is less of a question of what _I_ want, sweetheart, but more of a question of what _you_ want, and really, you're not doing anything that's more important than what I have in mind."

"Can we not have this conversation again?"

Aphrodite sighed, her beautiful hair falling around her as she did so and catching Percy's attention longer than he thought it should. "Well, I suppose I could stop bothering you about this, but really I can barely make decisions right now, not with my sweet little Eros missing." She ran one of her godly hands through her hair as it slowly started to match Annabeth's shade of gold, before melting back into its usual indescribable color. Percy assumed the gesture was in worry, but really, with Aphrodite, it was hard to tell.

"Wait," Percy started, "You lost a _god_?"

"Well technically sweetheart, he's not a god, like me, he's something slightly on the level of the Titans. We were both born quite before the rest of my silly councilmembers. Anyway, he's been gone for a few days, and I'm quite afraid he's visiting his unrealistically prideful wife Psyche. We _really_ cannot have him being… _distracted_ during the war. We need all hands on deck during the fight against Typhon, I'm afraid."

"Aren't you supposed to be fighting Typhon too?"

"I am as old and as powerful as Typhon. If I wanted to, I could defeat him in seconds and then proceed to stir the Olympians into Chaos and rule myself, but there's no fun in that, is there? War is so tragic and lovely and beautiful. I do not need as much of my power to play my part as the rest of them do. War causes such amounts of hurried love. I need to watch over all my favorite tragedies, but I cannot do that without Eros, and you, my dear, are the perfect candidate for that."

"I'm kind of in the middle of something here," Percy said, glancing over towards Rachel, who was still clutching her crazy-expensive phone to her ear.

"Oh, please. That mortal's pitiful attempt at a date is going nowhere, and you both know it. Besides, her mother is currently calling her away because she suspects her husband may be cheating on her with his personal assistant and that Rachel has known about it for months. You can thank me for that later. By the way, I prefer Ghirardelli Chocolates as my offerings. I've also put my most emotionally-stable daughter on the job, so I hope you don't mind working with her."

"Silena?" Percy asked hopefully, thinking of the kindest daughter of Aphrodite he had ever met.

"No, sadly, she's still in a state of emotional disarray." Aphrodite must have seen the shock in Percy's expression, because she added, "Don't worry, your other girlfriend is working on that. Here's the deal, sweetie. Ditch the redhead and go to Le Moulin a Café to meet my daughter. If you find Eros and return him to me here before one this morning, I'll leave you three alone… for the time being."

"And if I fail…?" Percy knew that that wasn't the thing you should tell goddesses, especially ones who could fry you to a crisp with a flick of their wrist (they don't like thinking that they're wrong or that they won't get their way), but he had this impulsive need to tick the gods off, it was like breathing or sleeping; he just couldn't go for too long without it.

Aphrodite's eyes started almost glowing, and the soft tone of her voice became slightly echoic as she rose slightly off the ground, high heels and all. "If you fail, you'll start to experience all the pain you are causing those who love you, and trust me, that's a fate almost as bad as the one I gave Psyche so many years ago."

And with that, Aphrodite disappeared in yet another flourish of rose petals. The world went back to normal, and Rachel started arguing with her mom on the phone.

"No! I swear! I did _not_ know about dad and Jordyn! Ugh! Mom! Just wait a second, I'll be home soon!" Rachel hung up the phone with a huff and then shot an apologetic look at Percy. "I'm really sorry, but I have to go." She waved the phone around in the air, whapping a businessman who was walking by in the face with her arm, and causing him to glare at the two of them with a _stupid teenagers_ look. "Family emergency."

Percy felt slightly guilty knowing that Aphrodite had caused all this, but the goddess' threat still hung in the air like the smell of spoiled meat, so he nodded and waved goodbye, swallowing his dread of the quest to come. As Rachel walked away, Percy hailed a cab and made his way over to the café that Aphrodite had told him about.

Drew Tanaka sat in the back booth, examining her nails as Percy walked into the door of the French café Le Moulin a Café. He spotted her and groaned when he saw her dark, cat-like eyes turn to watch him come in the door. Honestly, she looked really scary when she did that.

Percy had never had that good of a relationship with the daughters of Aphrodite, with Silena being the exception, of course, because she got along well with everybody. They were scary, beautiful girls who, out of all the campers, seemed godly the most. He had enough trouble talking to girls as it was, which any girl at Goode High, cheerleader to yearbook committee would tell you, but when they were naturally as beautiful as goddesses (they absolutely knew it, and would not hesitate to remind you), it was harder for Percy to talk to them than any cheerleader at Goode. If the daughters of Aphrodite were the popular girls at Camp Half Blood, then Drew was the queen bee: gorgeous yet slightly evil and not afraid to put you in your place.

Of course, he had gotten assigned to go on a quest with the head cheerleader of the Aphrodite girls; Drew Tanaka. Where Silena could change her hair and eye color, Drew could change your mind. Percy wasn't exactly sure how she did it, but he noticed quite often that when she was upset, a lot of people would tend to agree with her, even Annabeth, who absolutely hated her guts for reasons that she had not yet fully disclosed to Percy. As far as he knew, it had something to do with nurse's shoes and honey and some amount of beehives.

"Nice of you to finally show up _sweetheart_ ," Drew drawled, the _sweetheart_ part dripping with acid. Percy could tell that she did not actually mean any of what she had said, all the way from the _nice_ to the _sweetheart_ , but that was just the way Drew talked, covering up her harsh words with things like _honey_ and _sweetheart_.

"Well, your mom only _just_ told me about what we're doing." Percy felt the need to defend himself, although he knew he was not doing a very good job of it.

"I was informed yesterday," Drew gloated, once again examining her red-painted nails. "Lucky for _you_ , _Mr. Hero_ , I have actually met Eros on several occasions." Her voice still had its snarky _I-don't-have-time-for-you_ tone, but when she said the god's name, Percy could see fear in her eyes. "So this should be a piece of cake."

"Do you have any idea where he might be?"

"He has been shown to like going to Central Park with his wife, Psyche, but seeing as Aphrodite currently can't find him, he probably isn't there. There's a chance he could be at that Chinese place that Zeus likes…" Drew trailed off, listing other possibilities of where he could be, and then canceling them out.

"How do you know so much about the god's favorite hang-outs?" Percy implored.

"Puh-lease, hon," Drew laughed. "Children of Aphrodite are natural gossips. If any god is seen anywhere, even in disguise, we'll know who they are, what they're doing, who they're avoiding, etc. Sadly, most of us are currently at home for the holidays, so as for gods in the New York area that leaves me, and I am currently only aware of my mom, and the Hunters of Artemis."

Hearing about the Hunters sent Percy's mind off on a tangent, wondering how his friend Thalia, lieutenant to Artemis, was doing. Last time he'd seen her, they'd been wandering through the underworld together trying to locate the Sword of Hades. He wondered how much had changed in the past few weeks.

Drew clapped her hands in front of his face. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Um… yes?"

"Then what did I just say?"

Percy's mind blanked. "Uh…"

The daughter of Aphrodite rolled her eyes in exasperation. "I was _saying_ that the best place to check would probably be the Olive Garden near Times Square, but really, finding him is going to be hard."

"Okay," Percy started, "Why don't we head over there then?"

"Great. I'll call up my chauffeur." Percy opened his eyes wide at the mention of a chauffeur, but kept himself from making any comments. Gods, he had known Drew was rich, but not, like, _Rachel_ rich.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel was having a bad day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part I: The Rise  
> "Be careful of love. It'll twist your brain around and leave you thinking up is down and right is wrong."  
> -Aphrodite, The Titan's Curse  
> "The worst part about falling for your best friend is the fact that you can't tell them, not wanting to ruin the friendship. So you're basically forced to keep your biggest secret from the one person you can tell any secret to, and that breaks you."  
> -Unknown

**Rachel I**

Rachel was having a rough day. It had started out great, sure, until she had gotten that call from her mom about her dad's possible affair. Why couldn't she just have one day to herself? Why couldn't fate just let her have one fun day where she could hang out with Percy without monsters attacking, or that blonde demigod getting in the way, or her parents calling her off to do some stupid thing for them?

Last week it had been the family portrait. The week before, fittings for her second cousin's wedding, even though Rachel was not part of the bridal party, and she barely even knew this cousin. All she had wanted from the day was to go to the Met with Percy and have a good time. Was that so much to ask? According to the universe, it was.

The redhead rushed down the street, her paint-splattered converse colliding with pavement as she tried desperately to be on time to meet her mother. Rachel's mother was always getting on her about being late, especially if it was because she was spending time with Percy or doing a street art project, or something that she actually found _fun_. As she turned the corner, she spotted the cream-colored limo parked in an alleyway, with the sticker on the windshield that said "Dare Executive." She really loathed those two words. Do you know how hard it is to avoid a multi-million dollar corporation in your everyday life when your parents _don't_ own it? Well, it was even harder to avoid one in your daily life when your parents _did_ own said corporation, and tried to force you to take interest in taking it over every five seconds of your life. Rachel took a deep breath before diving headfirst into the too strong perfume-filled world that was her relationship with her mother.

Her mother pulled her into the back of the limo. Veronica Dare looked into her daughter's emerald eyes with her own tired hazel ones. Rachel's mother always seemed slightly on edge, as if she had sprayed her entire body with hairspray because she was terrified that, if she did not, her reputation and good-looks would crack and crumble into dust. Rachel, on the other hand, tried to think about those two subjects as little as possible, running around without any cares as to how other people saw her. As anyone could have guessed, they did not get along so well.

However, on this particular subject, the mother and daughter were united; they would not let Wesley Dare break up the family, which is precisely why Rachel was sitting in a limo in one of the many back allies of New York City with a Private Investigator named Elias Khan instead of hanging out with Percy at the Met.

"We were correct in our suspicions," Veronica whispered to her daughter, her hot-pink fingernails grabbing Rachel's winter coat with what seemed to be either excitement or anger. "He _is_ having an affair!"

"I know, Mom. You told me on the phone."

Mrs. Dare did not lose her composure at her daughter's comment. "And Mr. Khan here has found proof of it." With shaking fingers, the socialite pulled a photograph out of the manila folder that had been resting on her lap. Rachel really did _not_ want to look at the photograph, but she assumed that whatever the photograph was of, it had been harder for her mother to look at than it would be for her now. Luckily, it was only of her father kissing another young woman on his mahogany desk. There was not a very good shot of the other woman's face, but Rachel could make out a dark, short haircut on the woman's head from behind the thin film of snowflakes that covered the picture.

"Uh," Rachel started, "I hate to ask, but, how exactly did you get this picture?"

"Rachel Elizabeth!" her mother exclaimed, obviously horrified at her daughter's lack of understanding as to how you handled private investigators.

"No, no, it's okay." Mr. Khan waved his black-gloved hand at the older woman and turned his head away from the window to speak to her daughter. "With the help of a camera and a money-hungry janitor." That was all he was willing to share on the matter.

"What am I going to do? What are _we_ going to do?" Mrs. Dare breathed quietly, looking down at her black dress pants and tawny winter boots.

"We'll get through this, mom." Rachel whispered, putting a hand on her mother's soft mauve sweater. "We just need to—"

Suddenly, Rachel's head started to hurt like it had been since she'd started going to school at Goode with Percy. In her head, the woman kissing her father in the picture turned around and Rachel saw her eyes. She could not really describe the color, but they were all ablaze with some color of flame. For some reason, it reminded her of earlier that day when she had been walking with Percy and she'd gotten the text from her mom. In her memory, that same flame color had been in the corner of her eye. She groaned, coming to a conclusion of exactly what was going on, before passing out.

Rachel awoke in her room. She reached to her bag where her sketchbook would be, but found nothing. She cursed mentally; she must have left it in Percy's apartment. There was no way she was going to survive both the flame memory, her mother's questions _and_ the proof of her father cheating without that sketchbook. Not to mention, if Percy looked through it and saw her drawings… well… she would be absolutely mortified


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She clutched the invitation to her chest and smiled, her dark eyes scanning Percy. "We're going to get you all dressed up."  
> Percy had never felt more terrified by the words of a girl in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part I: The Rise  
> "Be careful of love. It'll twist your brain around and leave you thinking up is down and right is wrong."  
> -Aphrodite, The Titan's Curse  
> "The worst part about falling for your best friend is the fact that you can't tell them, not wanting to ruin the friendship. So you're basically forced to keep your biggest secret from the one person you can tell any secret to, and that breaks you."  
> -Unknown

**Percy II**

On their way out of the café, Percy spotted something pink floating about halfway down the block. He started running, completely forgetting Drew. As he ran, the pink thing started moving further and further away from him.

"Are you crazy?" Drew's shrill voice echoed from behind him. "We have a quest to do! You can't just go around running all over the place like a psychopath!"

A cream piece of paper swirled out of the small heart shaped cloud as Percy watched. Drew scrunched down, and smiled smugly as she examined the paper. "Now _this_ is my kind of quest."

Percy looked over her white jacket, nervous about anything that might make the daughter of Aphrodite excited about going on a quest, even if it had been assigned by her mom.

The paper read:

"Andrew Carnegie Mansion

8:00

Remember the ambrosia for Psyche and the playlist for Terpsichore."

"I'm confused," Percy stated, turning the paper around and not understanding why the cloud had even popped it out in the first place, much less why Drew found the few words written on the sugar-smelling paper so compelling. "What does it even mean?"

Drew rolled her eyes and twirled a strand of her dark hair around her finger. "You really don't pay attention _at all_ at camp, do you?"

"Hey!" Percy protested. "I do sometimes."

She pointed one of her manicured fingers to one of the names on the paper. "Terpsichore is the muse of _dance_ ; and it looks like Eros is going to one of her legendary parties at Carnegie Mansion tonight!"

"So?"

" _So_ we're going to crash that glorious party and get Eros to come back with us, and maybe, you know, socialize with some of the _hottest_ minor gods this side of the Mississippi."

Percy could not believe what she was saying; quests were supposed to be dangerous and dirty, full of grime and blood. They _definitely_ did not involve going to fancy parties to track down gods with playlists. He eyed Drew skeptically.

She clutched the invitation to her chest and smiled, her dark eyes scanning Percy. "We're going to get you all dressed up."

Percy had never felt more terrified by the words of a girl in his life.

Drew whistled, and a blue sports car pulled up next to her. "I believe," she started, looking at Percy's disbelieving expression, "I may not be the only New York socialite that you associate with, but I certainly am the one who knows how to travel in style."

Percy's thoughts drifted back to the many days he had spent with Rachel going around New York City, just talking and walking, sometimes taking the subway if necessary. He wondered how their friendship would be different if she actually embraced her parent's wealth like Drew did.

A chauffeur held open one door of the sports car, and helped Drew inside, before glancing at Percy with a small amount of disgust, and then helping him, too, into the sports car.

They were both awkwardly silent on the way to Drew's house. Percy did not really know what to say to the daughter of Aphrodite. They never really talked at camp. He knew Annabeth loathed her, but at the moment, Annabeth didn't really enjoy _his_ company that much either.

Girls were weird with who they didn't really like. In Percy's experience, if a guy didn't really like someone that much, he'd just avoid them, and maybe tell his friends to do the same. Sometimes, a fight would break out, but they were never as long or as kind-of-evil as Annabeth had made out girls' fights to be. He wondered what had happened between Drew and Annabeth.

Drew sat up a little straighter as a skyscraper that served as an apartment complex came into view. Percy assumed that must be where she lived. Funny, he had always assumed she was more of a mansion girl than an apartment girl. Of course, he was almost driven into shock when they stepped into the large bronze elevators of the building and Drew pulled out a card and the elevator scanned it, without any of the other many passengers of the elevator noticing.

They stayed on the elevator for a while until everyone else had gotten off at their assigned floors, and then the elevator skyrocketed up to what Percy would soon learn was the Penthouse suite. Drew dragged him to her room, once again using her key card to unlock the door, and started rummaging through her giant walk-in closet. She pulled out a multitude of differently-sized suits, throwing them at Percy as she went.

"Try all those on, and tell me which one fits best. Normally, I would bring my tailor up here, but seeing as we're scrunched on time, we're going to have to make due."

Percy wondered why on Earth she would have so many men's' suits in her closet, and Drew must have noticed him wondering, because she shot him a glare. "My dad lets me keep a few different sized suits in my closet just in case one of my gentlemen friends needs to attend a party with me, or a meeting, or just generally be seen in a public setting with paparazzi with me. Oh, don't give me that look. It's not like you think it is."

Percy went into her on-suite bathroom to try on the suits, and left Drew in front of her wardrobe, pondering what _she_ would be wearing to Terpsichore's party. All of the suits looked about the same, the only difference being size and color. The blue pin-striped one seemed to fit the best, and Percy was surprised how good it actually looked on him. He hadn't worn a suit since his ex-stepfather Gabe Ugliano's funeral (they'd never found the body, so it was really just a show). He was expecting it to be too big for him in the sleeves, remembering his lanky arms from a few years ago, but it actually fit quite nicely. Turns out heavy-duty sword-fighting every summer was better than any work out thing Percy had ever tried.

He came out, slightly uncomfortable, to find Drew holding a dress up and looking in the mirror. She noticed Percy come out of the bathroom, whistled in what seemed to be disbelief, and then pushed by him to get into the bathroom.

She didn't come out for a _long_ time. Percy wondered why girls always took so long in the bathroom. He fidgeted with the pink silk pillows on her bed, and then messed with the cuffs on his suit, buttoning them and unbuttoning them until, when Drew did _finally_ come out of the bathroom, her hair curled and pinned so it was all on one side of her head, he had somehow gotten the two sleeves of his suit buttoned together, twisting his arms into a pretzel. Drew rolled her eyes, then brought out a comb and gel out from behind her back. Percy groaned. He hated when people tried to fix his hair.

"Are we done yet?" Percy whined, knowing he sounded like he was nine.

"If you would just sit still…" Drew trailed off, pulling the comb through his messy hair again. Finally, she pulled away. "That's the best I could do. Hopefully it'll look like you're actually going for the messy look, and less like you just don't care how you look."

"But I don't."

It was only after Drew finished trying to wrangle his hair that Percy got to take in what she was wearing. Her dress was tight, and like everything else in the room, silk. It was pink with hints of dark red melted in here and there. Percy blushed when Drew realized that he was looking at her. It wasn't like how it was with Annabeth or Rachel, where occasionally he'd realize they were more gorgeous than he'd ever seen them. He knew Drew was beautiful, that, like the fact almost everything in the room was made of silk, was just a fact, but sometimes daughters of Aphrodite made their beauty their weapon more than a knife or a bow. It was as if Drew had just caught him examining her sword without permission, and that embarrassed Percy.

"How do you girls do that?" Percy asked, pointing to her hair, which was pinned in such a way that it only cascaded with curls on the left side of her head.

"Magic," Drew smirked. "Magic and bobby pins."

Not knowing what in Hades bobby pins were, Percy decided to just keep his mouth shut as Drew went through her closet, looking for shoes for both of them. She finally found a pair of brown dress shoes for him, and black heels so high Percy thought they looked like torture devices for herself.

"Now," she said, "for those invitations."

Drew rummaged through the pink papers littering her dresser until she pulled out two envelopes. "I've been invited to this party for _weeks_. I can't believe I didn't think Eros would be there!" There it was again; at the sound of the god's name Drew's eyes had gone dark.

"You get invited to parties by the muses?" Percy asked, disbelieving.

"Well, actually, no, but a lot of my father's business associates do, and they don't really like parties. Neither does my father, for that matter, so I end up getting the invitations. No one ever seems to regret inviting me, though, after they hear my charmspeak."

"Your _what_?"

"This is the whole reason I'm even on this quest in the first place. I have a gift, a wonderful amazing gift that most daughters of Aphrodite would _kill_ to have. I thought maybe if I went on this quest for Mom, she'd at least give me some advice of how to control it. I know that if I really, really want something, or I'm really upset, my voice will sound prettier and I'll get people to empathize me, or at least let me do what I want. Therefore, I get discounts at every store I go to, and these invitations."

"Oh." Percy was suddenly scared of his questing companion again.

"Don't worry. I won't use it on you. It's time to head to the party."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy felt like his face was so red it might explode. He was not sure what made him blush more: the fact that Drew Tanaka was asking him to try and kiss her, or the fact that Annabeth had told someone about what had happened on Mount Saint Helens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part I: The Rise  
> "Be careful of love. It'll twist your brain around and leave you thinking up is down and right is wrong."  
> -Aphrodite, The Titan's Curse  
> "The worst part about falling for your best friend is the fact that you can't tell them, not wanting to ruin the friendship. So you're basically forced to keep your biggest secret from the one person you can tell any secret to, and that breaks you."  
> -Unknown

**Percy III**

Drew handed her invitations to the guy who had the list of names for who was allowed to get in, he looked at the two of them skeptically, but nevertheless, the invitations were real, and with a smile from the daughter of Aphrodite, the doors opened as they made their way inside Carnegie Mansion.

They walked into the ballroom together, uncomfortably arm in arm. Drew was leading him towards the center of the ballroom, where a young woman was dancing the most beautiful dance Percy had ever seen, even though it was still very much modern party style.

"That's Terpsichore," Drew whispered into his ear, pointing to the dancing woman.

She looked very different from how Percy had remembered seeing her on Mount Olympus. Instead of lose wavy hair and a chiton, her hair was curled and pinned up, and she was wearing a tight black dress, with small silk sections in the colors of the rainbow that were attached to a crystal belt and that twirled about in the air as she danced.

"What do we do now?" Percy asked, "I don't see a cherub anywhere."

"Eros looks nothing like a cherub, Percy. More like a very intimidating gentleman who is not afraid to mess your life up with one of his wicked sharp arrows. And now, we dance. This is Terpsichore's party, after all. We'd look out of place if we didn't dance."

Percy gulped, not exactly keen on the idea of dancing with Drew. Sure, they'd gotten on better terms as the day had gone on, but he didn't really want to slow dance with her like he had with Annabeth on Mount Olympus a year ago. This was partially in case Terpsichore noticed them, and partially for… other reasons.

At Percy's shocked look, Drew laughed and responded. "Don't worry, nothing like that. Just normal dancing. You _have_ been to a school dance before, right? It's like that, except no slow dancing, and if we do, it's not the middle school rocking horse. It's kind of like a waltz step, but I'm not going to put that much pressure on you for that because I have a feeling you have two left feet."

Percy sighed, relieved, and he started to let Terpsichore's dance and the music tell him what to do. He was getting pretty into it, until he noticed a tall man with olive skin and a white tuxedo on the other side of the room staring at him and Drew. He was accompanied by a beautiful lady with dark, flawless skin, who sat next to him, whispering and giggling, her long, turquoise dress flowing in the evening breeze.

He nudged Drew. "Look, over by the stairs, there's that couple. I could have sworn the guy had wings a few seconds ago. Do you think its Eros?"

Drew's face went pale, and Percy knew he had the answer he needed. "What do we do?" He asked her.

The daughter of Aphrodite gulped, her hands shaking slightly, and blushing. "You need to pretend like you're going to kiss me."

"What?!" Percy almost yelled. "Why in Poseidon's name would I do _that_?"

"Look, Eros knows all about your little love triangle, and so do I. If there's anything that'll get him to reveal himself it's you adding one more person to the mix, especially if it's me. He and I… well let's say he enjoys making my life miserable. You don't actually have to kiss me, don't worry, he'll be over here interrupting things before you can even get the chance to. You do know how to kiss, don't you? Of course you do, that's all Annabeth could talk about when she thought you were dead, and oh my gods, it was so annoying."

Percy felt like his face was so red it might explode. He was not sure what made him blush more: the fact that Drew Tanaka was asking him to try and kiss her, or the fact that Annabeth had told someone about what had happened on Mount Saint Helens. It had always been something the two of them barely recognized as actually happening. He hadn't realized other people would know, much less talk about it.

Drew glared at him. "Oh, get over yourself. If it was anyone else I would ask the same thing, you don't need to worry about me getting added to your already messed up life." Percy still felt like he really didn't want to do this. "Fine." Drew started, "I'll take matters into my own hands."

And she did, literally. She grabbed his face with her bronze hands, but before anything could actually happen, a man coughed, and Drew let go of his face. Somehow, impossibly, the man in the white tuxedo was standing behind them. "Well, this is interesting."

Drew smiled a sweet smile, that Percy might've bought if her face hadn't been turning green like she was going to throw up. "Gotcha, Eros," she said, and then pursed her lips.

The god glared at the two of them, then turning to Percy. "Don't think I was going to just sit here while you two made your lives more _interesting_ than I care to allow. Come, walk with me." He led them out of the ballroom, towards a snow-covered balcony overlooking the front lawn.

"So nice to see you again, Miss Tanaka. Although, I suppose there's no way you would've sought me out by choice after our last meeting, so tell me: By what time does Lady Aphrodite wish my return?"

Percy's eyes widened in surprise. He hadn't expected Eros to know what their quest was, much less walk right up to them. If he really thought about it, Eros kind of seemed like some of Percy's friends from Goode, who would sneak out of the house to go to a party with their girlfriend when their parents wouldn't allow it, but always return, and pretend to be good little children for about a week, until they would do it again, and again, and again.

"What do you mean?" Percy started, "What happened with you guys? Why does Drew look sick every time she mentions your name?"

"Oh, just a little _family meeting_. Miss Tanaka, have you not yet told your date all the wonderful memories we've had together?"

Eros closed his hand, as if squeezing something, and Drew doubled over in pain, her eyes glassing over. Percy ran over to the daughter of Aphrodite, as she sat down in the snow, her hand over her heart.

"Tell him…" she grumbled, her eyes murderous, "to make it stop."

"Why would you want it to stop?" Eros asked, twirling the wine glass in his other hand. "These are wonderful adolescence memories, Miss Tanaka. You should be lucky you still remember yours."

Drew moved her hands from her heart to her temples, as if she was trying to push away whatever memories Eros had installed into her. "I will _not_ experience these moments again," she shouted, her voice filled with loathing. "I'm _quite_ different now."

Eros looked unamused. "Well," he sighed, "If you didn't want to _experience_ these things, you shouldn't have done them in the first place."

The ebony-haired girl cringed. She had started crying now, and dark makeup was dribbling down her face with her tears. Percy could hardly watch.

"Look," Percy said, "Whatever she did, it's in the past now. It's too cruel to keep her like this."

"Ha!" Eros grunted, "Perseus Jackson, I do not think _you_ , of all people, should be the one telling _me_ whether or not the feelings Miss Tanaka is currently experiencing are cruel. You seem to know nothing even remotely close to these feelings. In fact, if I'm correct, you're usually the person who _causes_ these feelings." He walked over to where Drew was sitting, putting the wine glass down into one of the tables on the balcony, and touched her shoulder, in what would've seemed like a caring move if Percy had not known exactly who he was dealing with and what their motives were.

Drew's dark eyes, which had previously been closed shot open, and an explosion of light shot out of them, creating a projected image that extended from the railing of the balcony to the roof above them, which, of course, the other mortals at the party didn't notice. "Why don't you _see_ exactly what she's going through?"

She seemed to register Eros' words, and began to narrate for Percy. He saw in the projection a Japanese girl walking down the hallways of a school. Her eyes were downcast and heavy, her mouth set with determination, a large textbook in her arms. She looked slightly like Drew, but in all the wrong ways. If Percy hadn't spent all day with her, he might have not recognized the small birthmark on the girl's thumb, or the glint in her eyes like she knew all of your secrets.

"Is that… _you_?" Percy asked in disbelief. The girl in the projection was more heavyset, less confident, and her clothes were modest, at best. She wore no makeup, and her nails had been chewed down to stubs. The Drew sitting in front of him, the one who would strut with confidence around the dirt paths of Camp Half Blood, the one who, supposedly, could do perfect winged eyeliner, the one who argued with Annabeth so much about the overall importance of memorizing things written in books, textbooks or otherwise, just whimpered and nodded her head, moving the projection up and down.

"Hey, Tanaka!" a boy called out from a locker across the hallway from where she was walking. "Come over here! Johnny-boy wants to talk to you." He was definitely from New Jersey. Percy could tell by his voice, but something other than that bugged him to no end; he reminded Percy of other mortal bullies he had faced, like Matt Sloan and Nancy Bobofit.

Younger Drew looked up in disbelief, and started shuffling over to where the boy was. "Wh-what do you want, Brenson?" The other boy, who Percy had to assume was Johnny, was pulled over to where Drew was nervously standing by Brenson. Johnny popped a bubble of his gum right in Drew's face, and Drew flinched, but stood her ground, nonetheless.

"You see," Brenson started, "Johnny-boy, here, has been hearing a lot of rumors that _you've_ got a crush on him, and you see, he's really flattered and all, but this don't look so good for him. We've got a reputation to maintain here, so we'd really appreciate it if you'd keep your stupid little ideas to yourself. Right, Johnny?"

Drew blushed as Johnny turned to look at her. In his face, he looked slightly guilty about what his friend had just said, but, if it was even possible, his words were more scathing than Brenson's had been. "I don't want you coming around me anymore, you got that, sweetheart?"

"What's so wrong with me?" Drew asked, her eyes tearing up. "It's not like you're even _dating_ me or anything. Why get up in my face about whether or not I like you?"

"I'll tell you what's wrong with you," Johnny started, his voice shaking, "you're fat and ugly and no one wants to talk to you, or even for you to be around them. You're like a plague; if someone has you, they're isolated for weeks until they manage to shake you off. Homecoming is coming up, and no girl is going to want to go with either of us if you keep coming up and talking to me and putting _stupid love notes_ in my locker!"

Drew's teary eyes widened as Johnny held a piece of notebook paper out in front of him, dangling it in front of her with only his thumb and forefinger, like it was garbage. "Leave us alone, honey," Brenson whispered, "because you're nothing but trash. Go back to studying your stupid books."

The light started to fade from present-Drew's eyes, and so did the projection. Percy could barely believe what he had just seen. He had no idea that boys could be that mean to girls, especially if the girl had done nothing wrong in the first place. "Getting angry, there, Perseus?" Eros asked, smirking, "Just you wait; you'll soon see all the times you've been like those boys. You have been ignorant and you don't understand all the things people go through for you. There are hearts you've hurt just as bad as Drew's—"

Drew cut Eros off, seeming not to hear the monologue that Eros had been trailing off on, "The worst part was that I didn't stop liking him. After that day, I tried so hard to get up to his standards, and he never even noticed me. That following winter was one of the worst of my life. I remember this one fight—" she stopped for a moment to sob. "There was this one fight I had with my dad that really pushed me over the edge. I had stopped doing as well in school because of how depressed I was getting, and he told me I was lazy and ugly and I didn't deserve to be his child, or my mother's. I went up to my room and cried so hard that night, resolving that I was going to become beautiful, whether or not it caused my grades to drop, because that was obviously what everybody else wanted."

Percy just stared at the Drew who was on the ground before him. He had never seen her so vulnerable before. Most demigods broke down after a battle, so he had never seen anyone cry so hard about just one memory. There must have been thousands other like it. He couldn't even begin to understand how Drew could've gone through years of torture like that, from both her peers and her parent. If anything, during his bad years at school, when he had been bullied, his mom had helped him out of it, or at least the thought of her. He wouldn't have done so well if she hadn't been on his side.

"The first time I went to go buy makeup, I remember there was this beautiful lady behind me in line, I can't recall exactly what she looked like now, and she saw what I was buying and told me it would look bad on me because it didn't match my skin tone. I cried when she told me that, and then started crying harder because everyone was staring at me crying, and the lady took me aside and showed me how to match my foundation to my skin tone and what colors looked good on me and what products to use for my hair, and then once I'd bought everything, she disappeared. I'm sure now that it was mom, but she's never come to my aid since. That's why I _really_ volunteered to go on this quest; so maybe mom would remember who I was. Camp helped me lose weight, in case you were wondering, all that training makes it hard for anyone to stay fat for long."

"But you weren't…" Percy started, "I know what those guys and your dad said, but I just saw you there, and you _weren't_ ugly, not even close. Sure, you looked _different_ , but it was definitely obvious that you were a daughter of Aphrodite."

Drew looked up at him. "Oh, shut up," She growled, wiping away a tear with her bronze hand, "you're just saying that because I'm crying and guys get all uncomfortable when girls start to cry."

Percy smiled. "Nice to see you're back to your old self."

"I'd _hate_ to break up this _touching_ moment," Eros drawled sarcastically, "But I'm afraid I must mention that the sun will be coming up soon and you still don't have me packaged and returned to Aphrodite. The problem for you is, however, that I did _not_ sneak out of Olympus just to have barely a conversation with the infamous Perseus Jackson. Tell me, how _are_ your little girlfriends?"

Percy blushed, stammering. "I-I'm not…The-They're not…It's not like that."

"Interesting," the god mused. "Which one would you say is prettier? Ms. Dare or Ms. Chase? And do they know that you're currently out and about with the girl who was voted New York City and the Surrounding Area's hottest girl of the year at a party that I doubt either of them would _ever_ take you to?"

"What kind of questions even are these?" Percy asked, before noticing that Eros now held a leather-bound notebook and a pen in his hands. "What are you doing?"

"Look, Mr. Jackson. While Lady Aphrodite enjoys making things happen, I extremely enjoy watching and recording the chaos she causes and reading them to the Olympians in my weekly report of Why Lady Aphrodite Should Be Watched More Closely Because, If We Do Not, She Is Going To Overthrow Olympus Eventually. It's quite entertaining to watch Athena's face in your bit. She gets upset no matter which girl you're with. It's almost as entertaining as Hercules Busts Heads was."

"Are you telling me you just watch random people and record their personal lives to read to the gods for their own personal entertainment?" Percy asked, outraged.

"Well I obviously didn't at one point or another, but keeping track of Lady Aphrodite's collateral damage is a great way to keep the Olympians, especially Zeus on guard. Unfortunately, they're getting quite bored with your segment, so I supposed an interview would spice things up, and Aphrodite usually likes to send her favorite playthings and one of her daughters to come and get me. I supposed it would be you. Voile; the interview comes to find me. It's quite genius isn't it?"

"You're insane." Percy felt his fists start to clench up. He was so sick of gods messing with his personal life.

"Now, now, is that any way to treat the god that you're supposed to deliver in an hour?" Percy continued to glare at him, even though Eros was chiding him by shaking his pen at him in disapproval. "Fine, I _suppose_ I can delete your segment after this interview _if_ you would be willing to go and find my lovely wife Psyche for me. I am afraid she does like to wander off with Terpsichore at these parties and it can get quite hard to find her. Especially when she does _not_ like to come back with me, since Lady Aphrodite usually blames her for me running off."

Percy considered this for a moment, before looking over at Drew, who, although she had stopped crying, was still kneeling on the ground, her legs probably freezing seeing as they were lying in about an inch of snow. "Fine, but you've got to leave Drew alone too."

Drew looked up at him with a gaze of pure thankfulness and appreciation. Her dark eyes were still glistening from her tears, but she stood up and dusted the snow off of her legs and shoes. "Thanks, Percy. You're more of a hero than I'd like to admit."

"Hey, we're kind of friends now." She smiled slightly and then glared back at Eros who was scribbling away furiously in his notebook. Drew and Percy shot each other a glance and began towards the bright lights of the party, strolling inside, arm in arm.

**Percy IV**

They made their way back to the ballroom, where most of the guests were still dancing. The dinner part of the evening had not been announced yet, and Percy was desperate to get out of there before it did because, gods, he was not willing to sit still and eat in a formal setting, not to mention they might miss Aphrodite's deadline. He couldn't see the beautiful lady with the dark skin anywhere, though, and Drew couldn't seem to either.

Suddenly, a crowd of guys about college-age, yet still looking like socialites, crowded through the ballroom, splitting up Drew and Percy. Percy immediately freaked out; he'd only made it this far into the night because of Drew's guidance. If he had to fake it for even a few minutes that he belonged here, he was pretty sure he'd get kicked out of the party. He stepped backwards, nervous, and bumped straight into Psyche.

"I'm so sorry," he apologized quickly, but she just smiled, and straightened her turquoise skirt.

"There is no way I'm talking to that daughter of Aphrodite." She spit out the goddess's name like Annabeth would say Hera. Percy figured there was some myth behind Psyche's reasoning, but he wasn't totally sure what it was. He figured it best not to bring it up.

"Um… okay…"

"So, you've talked to my husband?"

"Yes," Percy started, remembering what Eros had done to Drew. Whatever Aphrodite had done to Psyche, he was fairly sure that it didn't qualify Drew's torture.

"He's probably agreed to come back home. Well, I will not! I am done with that crazy goddess controlling every aspect of my life. Did you know that she is not even a _real_ goddess? She's more like a Titan, with the power she has, she deserves to rot in Tartarus with the rest of them."

Percy looked around, nervous that lightning might strike or something because of Psyche's comment, but apparently, she made them a lot, because nothing happened.

"Look, I understand, I really do, but as you said, Aphrodite's a Titan, and if you and Eros aren't home by midnight, well, we can only hope—"

"She's taken _everything_ away from me; my family, my home, half of my sanity. The only thing I have left is Eros, and he may be at the beck and call of that wretched Titaness, but _I am not_!" she spat. "Did you know that she once forced me into awful, horrible situations just because she thought I was prettier than her? I'm not stupid like that wretch Arachne, I didn't _ask_ to be beautiful, but if someone asks you if they can erect a temple in your honor because of how gorgeous they think you are, wouldn't it be rude to say no? That's not even the _worst part_ , though, because I literally crawled through Tartarus for that demonic Titaness, and until _you've_ crawled through Tartarus, I don't want to hear you tell me what in Olympus' name she has ordered me to do!"

Percy suddenly got very frustrated. Sure, he understood that the gods could be awful, especially to those who they did not consider as equals, but thinking like Psyche currently was would only lead to how Luke became. Percy grimaced. He wished Drew was here, or Annabeth, or _someone_ who did _not_ have an extreme talent for getting on the bad side of gods.

A whistle came from behind him and Percy turned around to see Drew, again green-faced, pulling Eros by the arm. Percy sighed in relief; he wasn't going to have to be mediator on this one. Still, Psyche's words bugged him. If Psyche kept thinking like that, having Eros on Kronos' side might just be even more terrifying than the current armada that Kronos had been building up.

"Ah, there's my lovely wife!" Eros sounded tired, but still glad to see Psyche, which was good for Percy, because Psyche's dark eyes were glaring at him and frankly, she was terrifying.

The couple started talking, tense whispers between two immortal faces. Percy mouthed Drew a _thank you_ , but she was staring at the large clock in the ballroom. It read 12:15.

Percy cursed. Even if Eros and Psyche were to come with them _right now_ , they still might be late to meet Aphrodite. He scratched his head in frustration _. "_ Um, I hate to break things up," he started, "but we're supposed to meet Aphrodite in Central Park in less than an hour."

"Well then, we'd better get going." Psyche stated stiffly, obviously _not_ of the opinion that they should get going. "I hope you have suitable transportation."

"I have a limo." Drew stated, glaring at Psyche with a how-dare-she look in her eyes.

Aphrodite appeared in a shower of sparkles at the stroke of one, the drama queen and center of attention as always. She was dressed in a gold, backless dress that flowed down to the grass. Finding Eros and Psyche arguing and Drew and Percy fervently glancing at one of the clocks in the park, she walked over to where the four of them stood.

"Well, I _suppose_ you succeeded," she announced to Drew and Percy with a wave of her perfect hand. Percy thought he had never seen Drew look so happy. "After all, my most faithful attendant and his… _wife_ are both here. By the way, Percy, my current favorite gorgeous hero, Drew's mother _knows_ where she is. Can that be said for yours, by chance?"

Percy started freaking out. As far as Sally knew, he and Rachel should have both been back by now. She was probably worried sick. He looked to the rest of them. "Does anyone have a phone, or _something_?"

Drew produced a hot pink iPhone from her handbag. Percy looked at her, shocked; demigods weren't supposed to carry around phones since they attracted monsters, and yet, Drew had had one with her the entire day. The girl shrugged. "It doesn't attract monsters if it's on Airplane Mode. Be careful, though. As soon as you turn it on, every monster in the area will know we're here, so be quick and make sure to turn it back off as soon as you're done."

Percy called his mom, feeling the guilt of what he had done crushing down on him. He explained about the quest, and Rachel having to leave suddenly for some family emergency. "Drew's gonna drive me home, mom," he said, after a while of processing on both ends. "But there's a lot of traffic outside, and I think all the monsters in the area might be coming this way so I've really got to go." They exchanged the necessary ' _I love you_ ' and Percy hung up, making sure that Drew's iPhone was put back on Airplane Mode.

The traffic took more than a few hours. It _was_ holiday season in New York City, after all, and he walked with Drew into the apartment complex, finally, at around 4 am. They weren't that tired, because when Drew's chauffeur calculated the traffic, he noted that they'd get there late whether or not they stopped at a Starbucks, which was run by a few water spirits. Percy was shocked to find that, unlike most girls he knew, Drew took her coffee black, but he would be even more shocked when he got to his apartment.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She did not really care, but really, she had dealt with enough incredibly awkward conversations that day to manage this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part I: The Rise  
> "Be careful of love. It'll twist your brain around and leave you thinking up is down and right is wrong."  
> -Aphrodite, The Titan's Curse  
> "The worst part about falling for your best friend is the fact that you can't tell them, not wanting to ruin the friendship. So you're basically forced to keep your biggest secret from the one person you can tell any secret to, and that breaks you."  
> -Unknown

**Annabeth III**

Annabeth stumbled into the hallway where Percy's apartment was early the next morning, and found, of all people, _Rachel Elizabeth Dare_ sitting in front of the door.

She looked up from her phone. "Oh. It's you."

"Yeah."

"I was expecting—"

"I know."

"They're not home."

"Okay."

"Yeah."

"So… how have you been?" Annabeth asked stiffly, starting to sit down on the other side of the door from where Rachel was. She did not really care, but really, she had dealt with enough incredibly awkward conversations that day to manage this one.

"Oh, you know, the usual, just realizing a goddess has been messing with my family life for the sole purpose of ruining my morning." Rachel sighed, her eyes darting anywhere but towards the other girl's face.

"You're not _that_ important," Annabeth snorted. She took off her black coat to reveal her bright orange Camp Half Blood t-shirt, mentally cursing whoever was running the heating system in this building for making it always _too_ hot in the night, and _too_ cold in the day.

"You're right, I'm _sure_ that it had a little something more to do with the person I was hanging out with." She didn't have to say who it was, they both already knew, and both of their eyes were directed at the floor to avoid glaring daggers into each other. "How about you?"

"Fixing a misunderstanding between campers."

"Oh."

"So why are you _here_?"

"Left something inside, and I need to make sure that the lady who I think talked to him really did talk to him right before I left to deal with my family. And I could ask the same of you."

"Returning a spoon."

"Really?" The redhead smirked

"It was weighing on my conscious," the blonde snapped back. Her eyes shot daggers at the redhead. She wasn't totally sure if this conversation could possibly get any more awkard.

"It's a _spoon_."

"What'd you leave inside?"

"My sketchbook."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Luckily, they were saved from even more of an awkward conversation by Percy himself coming around the corner with… Drew?

Annabeth first stared at the two of them, who hadn't seemed to notice either her or Rachel yet, and then her eyes darted to the redhead sitting semi-next to her. Rachel's eyes were the biggest she'd ever seen them get. Annabeth sighed. Sure, Drew was gorgeous, but she got enough staring from the boys. Rachel didn't need to boost her ego, too.

Percy noticed. He and Drew both stopped dead in their tracks. They were both in formal attire. Annabeth wondered why in Athena's good name they would be in formalwear… unless… Drew had _better_ not taken him to one of her stupid wealthy-people parties, or else the daughter of Aphrodite was going to get her pretty little dark eyes gouged out with Annabeth's knife. Annabeth decided to act nonchalant.

She raised her hand. "Spoon."

Rachel, who's eyes were still wide at Drew's presence, pointed to the door, following Annabeth's suit. "Sketchbook."

Drew smirked, looking at the two of them with a slight expression of pity. "Well, that's my cue to leave." She started walking away, and then turned her head back to face the three of them, her black curls flying through the air as she did so in the way only rich, beautiful girls could manage. "Oh, and ladies? Don't worry your pretty little heads. My mom just had a _teeny tiny_ quest for us that just _happened_ to involve us going to one of the biggest socialite parties this winter." She then turned to Percy, "You can keep the suit." Drew started walking away again, practically sashaying down the hallway, when Rachel's voice called her back.

"You… you're Drew Tanaka aren't you? Of the Tanaka Corporation?"

Drew turned back yet again, smirking with distaste. "And you're Rachel Elizabeth Dare, the disappointment of the Dare family. It's quite a pity really; in another world we could've been friends." And with that stinging comment, she turned away again, and turned the corner that would lead her back to the elevators.

"Daughters of Aphrodite," Annabeth grumbled. "They never seem to get less dramatic." She then turned to glare at Percy. "For the record, you're still an insufferable _idiot_ who doesn't understand _anything_ about _anything._ " She shoved the spoon into Percy's hand, and as she did so, her fingers touched his palm and she could feel sparks shoot up her arm. Still, it did nothing to quell the angry expression on her face. She put her black coat back on, tossing her blonde hair to get it unstuck from the uncomfortable position between her hood and her neck. "I hope you guys have a _wonderful_ rest of the day," she announced scathingly, stomping her brown, slush-covered boots down the hallway in absolute and complete annoyance.

Of course, she paused right after she turned the corner, wanting desperately for some inexplicable reason to hear what they would say when she was gone. What she was rewarded with, was Rachel's voice, still soft from Drew's stinging comment. "Was… who was Drew's godly parent?"

"Aphrodite," Percy responded, although his voice seemed slightly far away."

"Are all demigod girls like that? So dramatic and hot-headed?"

"Not all of them." Annabeth could hear the key turn to Percy's apartment. "You said your sketchbook was inside?"

"Um, yeah."

Annabeth peeked around the corner just long enough to watch them go into the apartment together, smiling, and a knot tightened in her stomach. She swallowed it down and decided to continue to the elevator, where she sat in brooding silence for the rest of the way down, and the taxi-ride to Camp Half Blood too.

The taxi driver dropped her off about a mile away from Camp Half Blood, which was to be expected, so Annabeth had the whole mile walk to let her feelings fester. Of course, as soon as she got into camp, the morning sun still up, she was greeted by a very, very, _very_ lost pizza delivery guy.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As soon as she got back up into her room, Rachel threw herself on her bed and stared up at her ceiling. She did not even understand why she had agreed to her dad's proposal. Percy was the only slightly normal thing in her life (even though he was nothing but normal), and she would just let him slip through her fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part II: The Fall  
> "Here too it's masquerade, I find / As everywhere, the dance of mind / I grasped a lovely masked procession / And caught things from a horror show… / I'd gladly settle for a false impression / If it would last a little longer though"  
> -Johan Wolfgang von Goethe  
> "I didn't care who kissed you first as long as I kissed you last."  
> -Rachel Vail, If We Kiss

**Rachel II**

Rachel sat in uncomfortable silence at breakfast that next morning. Her parents were _not_ happy that she had snuck out of her room at approximately 3:15 that morning (according to the security camera that, unbeknownst to her, had been watching her every move for the past five years ) to go to the house of a _boy_. It didn't help her case that he wasn't even a _rich_ boy, even though she had pointed out numerous times that just earlier that night he had been seen arm in arm with Brooklyn socialite Drew Tanaka (of Tanaka Incorporated) at one of the hottest parties of the year. Now she'd probably be grounded for the next year, that is, _if_ her mother didn't decide to send her off to charm school this instant without even a discussion about whether or not Rachel even _wanted to go._

"Rachel Elizabeth Dare!" Her mother's voice pounded at her skull for the umpteenth time that morning. Rachel's parents had used her full name on her so much in the past year that she had just started introducing herself like that anyways. She figured that whoever she was meeting would hear it sooner or later, so she might as well give them a heads up.

Rachel shifted uncomfortably, her pale legs itching from the velvet on the seat of the chair she was currently sitting on in the breakfast room, and her ears burning with her mother's words as their butler rushed around them, continuously offering the family ' _more coffee?'_ even though it had been made clear numerous times by the entire party that no, they did not want more coffee, and ' _would he please stop asking?'_ She knew she could change the subject easily, shift it to the entire reason she _hadn't_ gotten her sketchbook when she'd left Percy in Central Park the previous afternoon, but that would start up a huge argument that Rachel figured would be even more painful than the lecture she was currently enduring.

Her thoughts drifted to Drew, the girl that Percy had come home with. Percy had made it pretty clear the previous night that neither her, nor Drew, seemed to share any romantic feelings for each other. Well, he had not said it outright, but Rachel could just tell from the way they'd departed from each other. Even so, as Percy had recounted Drew's plan to get Eros to notice them, Rachel's stomach had shriveled up into a million tiny knots of jealousy. It was one thing with Annabeth; she had been there first and wasn't a super-rich daughter of the Greek goddess of beauty who'd somehow managed to put him in a _suit_. No, she considered the blonde a lot less of a threat than the girl who had driven Percy home in a limo like it was no big deal. Even the thought of Percy kissing that mythic bit—

"Rachel Elizabeth Dare! Are you even _listening_ to us? Your mother asked you a question!" Mr. Dare shouted at her from over his kale omelet and dragon-fruit smoothie. _Since when have you cared about people listening to anything your wife has to say?_ Rachel thought, but once again, she kept the question to herself; this morning was going badly enough.

"I'm listening." She mumbled, rolling her eyes and turning to her mother, who had dark circles of worry under her eyes and her red hair pinned up in a tired bun. She wondered how her mother wasn't falling to pieces under the stress. If Rachel did feel any guilt whatsoever this morning, it was for worrying Veronica Dare, who had enough to worry about without her daughter scaring her half to death.

"How are we supposed to know that we can trust you after this?" Mrs. Dare asked, although Rachel knew her mother still totally trusted her. If she didn't, she wouldn't have texted her the picture of fluorescent yellow lipstick that she had found in the couch cushions of the parlor with a frantic message asking not where her daughter was, but rather if the lipstick belonged to her at 4:21 that morning. It had not. "It is of my utmost opinion that Clarion Ladies Academy would do wonders for her," he noted to her cheating husband.

"No!" Rachel protested. "Look, I know I messed up, but my _entire life_ , my _friends,_ are all right here, Dad!" she tried. "Look, I met Drew Tanaka last night and didn't totally mess up things with her; I could be a socialite, like you've always wanted."

Wesley Dare considered this for a moment. Rachel knew that, above all, her father valued the good reputation of both his business and his family. It didn't help his already permanent bad mood that his only daughter, who was going to inherit the company eventually, was constantly denting her reputation with holey, paint-covered jeans and stand-up-to-the-man rallies, so the idea of her turning her life around like that without the tabloids having to question why on Earth the Dares would send their only daughter away seemed to genuinely please him.

"That seems like a good idea," he started, and Rachel got her hopes up. "That being said, _however_ , you're still going to be grounded from any events that don't involve your socialization with the upper class of New York City and its surrounding areas. Most importantly, you are _not_ in any way allowed to see that Perseus Jackson fellow. I don't like what he's doing to you. I'll have our people contact Mr. Tanaka's people; I'm sure his daughter would be more than happy to show you around the lifestyle of a socialite and the New York City social scene." Rachel groaned and slumped down in her seat; she was _not_ looking forward to spending the day with Drew.

As soon as she got back up into her room, Rachel threw herself on her bed and stared up at her ceiling. She did not even understand _why_ she had agreed to her dad's proposal. Percy was the only slightly _normal_ thing in her life (even though he was nothing but normal), and she would just let him slip through her fingers. Her mother had taken her phone away, so she couldn't text him, or anyone else, and in less than twenty-four hours, she was going to be learning how to be a stuck up, self-centered socialite from the poster-child for stuck up, self-centered socialites. What a _joy_.

About two hours later, her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of her mother welcoming someone into the parlor. She closed her eyes tight, hoping that maybe if she concentrated hard enough, Drew would just go away.

Rachel immediately flashed back to her eighth grade cotillion, the last social event she had gone to, which other daughters-of-rich-people had attended, and besides last night, the last time she had talked to any high-class citizen around her age.

First of all, her date had been assigned to her by her father, who was trying to make a business deal with the company of her date's father, and he had smelled suspiciously of Elmer's glue and dead catfish. Her date had picked his nose the entire time, stepped on her feet as they danced, and tried to kiss her with his finger still in his nose. Let's just say Rachel's father had _not_ made the business deal with her nose-picking date's father, and Rachel had realized that she was not cut out for the life of charming her father's business clients' children.

After about a year of avoiding all social contact with people who, according to her parents, were "at her level", Rachel now found herself sitting on her bed with the annoyingly flawless Drew Tanaka standing in her bedroom door. She immediately felt inferior. It had been one thing at night when they could both barely see each other in the dim, flickering light of the hallway of Percy's apartment building. Now, in the blinding sunlight, Rachel could see clearly, that yes, Drew was just as beautiful as she had seemed that morning; dark hair shining in the sunlight, and dark eyes that were covered with a thin layer of gold eyeliner glaring at the girl on the bed. Rachel had not put on any makeup, and her frizzy red hair was back in a bandana, waiting to be brushed.

"I suppose this was _your_ idea?" the daughter of Aphrodite complained. She walked over to one of Rachel's bookshelves, her Prada heels clicking on the wood of Rachel's bedroom floor, and started examining the books on her shelf, not seeming to even care that Rachel had neither welcomed her into the bedroom, nor said it was okay to touch her stuff.

"It was either you or charm school." Rachel retorted. "Don't feel too flattered, _hon_."

"I've been to charm school," Drew started. "It's good you didn't go; the girls there would eat you alive. Of course, so will I." She spread her ruby lips into a twisted smile. "But at least you won't be missing home afterwards."

Rachel smiled uneasily. Since she had been a little girl, plenty of monsters and things had tried to eat her alive, but she wasn't totally sure if Drew was joking or if that was just a special power that daughters of Aphrodite had. "Uh… okay…?"

Drew rolled her eyes. "Let's get this over with. First thing's first: I need your phone."

"Can't," Rachel sighed, tossing the ripped up teddy bear on her bed up into the air and then catching it again. "Parents took it since I'm grounded."

The other girl's dark eyes flashed with murder. "Let me talk to them," she commanded with a sweet voice that did not at _all_ match the expression on her bronze face.

Drew left the room for a few minutes, and she returned with Rachel's phone. "It's on airplane mode, so we won't have any monsters attacking your lovely penthouse." She started to fervently tap Rachel's touch-screen phone. "I'm entering into your contact list every girl in the city around our class and age. Of course, there are a few from elsewhere that I know of, but you can't get those _that_ easily." She threw the phone at Rachel when she was done, seemingly without a care as to whether or not the screen smashed into a million pieces. "Now, since we're doing this the quick way; I'm going to need to go through your closet."

Rachel immediately sat up in panic. Her first thought was of a show she used to like where these two supposedly fashion-experts would throw away someone's entire wardrobe and then hover over their shoulder as they bought more new clothes. She shuddered. She would _hate_ it if anyone, especially her parents or Drew, tried to do that to her. "You're not going to throw away my clothes are you?"

The daughter of Aphrodite shrugged. "Only if they don't fit my standards." Rachel groaned and face-planted back onto her bed. She would have to get their butler to dig through the trash to get her clothes back after Drew was gone.

The dark-haired girl started rummaging through Rachel's closet, throwing things behind her. Finally, she emerged, her face flushed and her eyes wider than usual. " _Do you own_ anything _besides ripped jeans and paint covered shirts_?" she asked, her voice suddenly shrill.

Rachel thought about it for a moment. "I actually don't know. I mean, I guess there's a few smocks and stuff in there, and maybe the dress I wore to my eighth grade cotillion…" She winced as war memories filled her brain. "And probably a Harvard hoodie that used to be my dad's, but really, what else do you need?"

"I'd better get paid for this." Drew muttered before going back into the closet. She came back out with a teal off-the-shoulder shirt that Rachel remembered her Aunt Victoria buying for her at one point or another, but that she had never worn. Drew tossed the shirt at the redhead. "This is the _only_ thing I _might_ wear in public that I could find in your gods-forsaken closet. Put it on."

Rachel sighed, pulling off her purple and blue tie-dyed t-shirt and pulling on the teal shirt that Drew had thrown at her. It still smelled like her aunt's house: like caramels, saltwater taffy, and cat litter. Upon seeing the redhead in the chiffon shirt, the other girl smirked, obviously pleased with herself.

"I mean, we'll need to find you some designer jeans or high waisted-skirts to go with it, but I'm assuming you could wear this at least once for some afternoon tea or something with those of a lower social standing than you, but if you wore this to one of _my_ afternoon-tea-things, I would shun you into oblivion, so keep that in mind." Rachel immediately felt overwhelmed. "Tsk, tsk; we're going to have to go shopping for you. You _do_ have a credit card, right? Of course, I can't be seen out in public with you looking like _that_ , no matter what your social standing is; I've already suffered enough damage for my reputation to handle in the past forty-eight hours, so you're going to need to be driven to my place."

The daughter of Aphrodite started striding out the door before turning back to face Rachel, who was still face-planted on her bed. "Oh, and tell your little boyfriend that if he does _anything_ to crinkle that suit, I will personally make sure his head ends up on a pike." With a flip of her long, silky, black hair, she left Rachel's room, before the redhead could even say _he's not my boyfriend_. Rachel consequently groaned loudly. This was going to end up the longest, most tedious day _ever_.

She pulled a pillow over her head, trying to block out the memories of the cotillion that Drew's visit had filled her with, but it was too much. Lately this had been happening more and more often, as Rachel blacked out and images of a strict, hawk-faced lady and a blonde, twig-like boy both in extremely exquisite formalwear came over her.

About forty-two kids had been packed into a conference room of some fancy hotel that evening. Unfortunately, Rachel had been one of them. She was not totally sure _why_ she'd agreed to the cotillion. Rachel supposed it had been back when she had still tried to please her parents as much as possible, before the angsty _you-don't-understand-me_ teenage years came into full swing. Maybe there had been some reward for her going along with her parents' desires, or maybe one of her supposed "friends" at that time had been going and Rachel had not wanted to feel left out.

All she remembered was that for some reason or other she had gone to an exceptionally old, extremely cranky Mrs. Dubior's house every Monday and Thursday for two months in the summer and sat through copious amounts of lectures on basic need-to-know things. Such things included topics like what kids of soup were classified as "commoner's soup", the basic ten steps on how to use a fan, and most importantly; how to dance every single kind of ballroom dance that there was. There had been many more types than thirteen-year-old Rachel had even known existed. She had been paired with a skinny boy with white-blonde hair named Wesley, who had wiped his nose constantly with the cuffs of his hundred-dollar dress shirts, and who's hands had been so dry that every time they had been forced to dance together, Rachel had imagined she was dancing with a dinosaur, and then proceeded to chuckle to herself at the thought, because she would've _rather_ been dancing with a dinosaur than Wesley.

Needless to say, she had begged her parents to take her out of the class after the first week. Looking back, Rachel supposed that it was the cotillion itself that had forced a wedge (made of tiny sandwiches, lemon cake and boys with dinosaur hands) between her and her parents. For a brief time, they had actually been getting along. She hadn't had the nightmares in months and, to celebrate, they'd all gone to visit their friends, the Petersons, with whom the Dares had always seemed had a friendship with. After about the first three days, however, Rachel had had a fight about who-knows-what with the Petersons' daughter, Marissa, the nightmares then soon consequently returned, and it had been decided that she would attend Mrs. Dubior's class of horrors.

The memory in question, however, was not one of the awful Monday or Thursday afternoons that she had spent in the pomegranate perfume-smelling, cat-filled mansion of Mrs. Dubior. Instead, Rachel found herself back in the conference center. Back in that itchy lavender dress and those too-tight designer heels that her absent-minded mother had picked out for her at one point or another. Of course, she was staring in the face of Wesley. This was always how the flashback started. Not at the creaky old house, not getting ready with her cotillion friends at one of their gigantic penthouses, not even when the cotillion actually began. It was always with Wesley.

She assumed that maybe her subconscious was trying to tell her something about the boy. Maybe that she should seek him down now because he'd gotten totally hot, or maybe that she should at least consider apologizing to him for real, because honestly, who actually believed the forced apologies that rich parents made their spoiled rotten children make for their predictably spoiled behavior. Perhaps it really was as one of the psychics she'd secretly went to had said; maybe someone was trying to contact her through Wesley, maybe that's why the memory was slightly different every time.

This time, the roses on the tables were purple. She knew deep inside that they had been white roses, but they were purple this time, alerting her to the fact that this was another one of her black outs.

Wesley glanced over at Mrs. Dubior nervously. "Um… uh… you l-look nice," he said shakily, although he did not seem very certain about his statement. He never did. He was probably one of the reasons Rachel still had self-esteem issues. Wesley's uncertain compliment damaged her confidence every time she experienced it. She tried to shake it off, focusing on other parts of the room to see what was new, but as far as she could tell, it was just the purple flowers.

"Thanks." Rachel responded, looking around the conference room nervously as they danced, once again trying to piece together anything else that might possibly be wrong about this black out.

The conversation continued as normal, with small talk about the weather, and Wesley apologizing every time he stepped on her toes. Then came the kiss. She was not certain why it bothered her so much. Sure, tons of people she knew had had awful first kisses, and it had not been _that_ bad (Okay, it had been _that_ bad). This time, however, after the kiss, which usually stopped the kind-of-dream, Wesley pulled away from her and whispered one word into her ear: "Orthrys."

Rachel woke up.

She looked out her floor-to-ceiling bedroom winder to see Drew's limo waiting outside for her. Shopping was the last thing from her mind with the blackout that had just happened, but if it kept her out of her counselor's office and boarding school, then Rachel was willing to put up with it… Just for today, though. The redhead sighed, pulled on some shoes, and made her way down the velvet staircase to the parlor, where her newly excited mother sent her off, probably absolutely thrilled that her one and only daughter had a shopping buddy who, according to the NYC Gossip Hopper, was insured for about 1.3 million dollars, and who also, according to Veronica Dare's lunch buddies, had an entire fleet of yachts sitting on some private island in the Gulf of Mexico.

Rachel usually knew not to trust the unfounded wisdom of her mother's brunch buddies, but she had to admit, Drew Tanaka was an impressive girl. She somehow managed to attend every charity ball, every socialite tea, and every single ribbon cutting of her father's business without revealing to the world, or the press, that she was, in reality, a total bit…

"Chop, chop!" The daughter of Aphrodite called from inside her limo, which looked like it had been covered with the dust of a thousand diamonds. "I don't have all day to waste time with you, you know, I have a spa appointment at four and a dinner date at eight!" Rachel shoved her fists into the pockets of the worn cotton jacket she had thrown over the teal top, hoping to all the gods of Olympus that she would come out of this encounter without being bored to death by her blabber, and without having attempted to claw the other girl's eyes out with her own nail file.

They rode in silence, Drew vainly examining her nails the entire ride and the redhead slumping over in her seat in complete and utter boredom. She dreaded having to actually shop with this stuck up girl with a heart of ice. Shopping was supposed to be with friends who could make you laugh… at least that was what contemporary novels and television had taught her. Most of Rachel's friends were boys, however, or girls who did not particularly enjoy shopping, so that assumption had never really been tested. She couldn't even imagine the daughter of Aphrodite cracking a genuine smile, much less laughing.

They stopped at a luxurious hotel, and Drew daintily stepped out of the car, one white designer boot in front of the other. She turned to Rachel. "Stay here," she hissed, like a disturbed cat, and went on her way towards the lobby of the hotel. Drew returned with a handbag the size of some of Rachel's canvases, and a hot pink iPhone in her hand.

As the daughter of Aphrodite entered the limo once again, Rachel felt the need to ask. "Uh… aren't demigods not supposed to have phones?"

"Please, honey, do you think I actually use the _data_? What kind of idiot do you take me for? I don't have _that_ much of a death wish."

"Then why do you have it?"

"You know you can do things other than call people on a phone. For instance, I have a map of all the current hottest shopping centers screen-shot and saved on here. I can't go carrying around a giant map like a tourist now, can I? Especially not in _this_ top."

Rachel could tell, just by passing the mannequin display of a store, which stuck up billionaire it was geared to allure. Luckily, Drew didn't drag her into any of the first-wives-of-Manhattan stores, which were filled with long faux-fur (or real, if you paid more) coats, dresses with plunging v-necks and pencil style skirts, and baby-heeled Mary-Janes, or into any of the toddlers-literally-in-tiaras stores, which consisted mostly of lace, bows, tutus, and ruffled collars. Unfortunately however, Rachel _was_ dragged into every trophy-wife boutique, every London-tea-socialite shop, and every single one of the god-awful Jersey-shore-prom-queen-geared outlets that the daughter of Aphrodite knew about, and boy did she know a _lot_ of them.

Somehow she went through more looks than she'd even known about. _Was punk-indie-surfer-mermaid_ _even a real thing?_ They had gone from store to store, searching and prodding for something, _anything_ that would please Drew enough to let Rachel finally go home. She felt like she had been tested on by the government for having extremely weird powers or something, not like she'd just gone shopping.

Then there was the matter of Drew not smiling. She didn't smile when she walked into a store. She didn't smile when she picked out an outfit for Rachel. She didn't smile when she criticized every fiber of Rachel's being like that one old-guy judge on that singing competition reality show that sometimes aired on that channel with the teen moms. She _absolutely_ didn't smile whenever Rachel talked. The only time she ever smiled was when she was talking to a sales associate or her chauffer, and even then, it was obviously only a forced polite smile. What kind of person didn't smile when they were doing something they loved?

"So you shop a lot, right?" Rachel asked. She knew the answer was obvious, she could tell just by looking at the amount of shopping bags that had been packed into the limo in the past few hours that were all for one girl with a golden credit card. Still, it was hard to get Drew's attention without invoking the words "shopping," "heiress," or Rachel's current favorite: Mean Girls' quotes, and honestly Rachel really wanted to know the answer to that question. She was hoping for something along the lines of, _all day every day_ , or even possibly a lecture on how shopping was an art and she was an imbecile for even asking such a question.

Instead, the daughter of Aphrodite rolled her perfectly-lined eyes. "What do you think?" Rachel had to admit, she was surprised by the other girl's sarcasm. Maybe Drew had a higher IQ than she'd originally thought.

"You must like shopping then, right?"

"Where is this going?"

"You're obviously not enjoying yourself right now, even though you're doing something that you probably do often because you love doing it. What's up with that?"

"Listen, sweetheart. I find you quite a challenge. You intrigue me with the way that you somehow manage to ruin _every_ outfit combination I pick out for you, which almost goes against my very nature. Your hair is a constant mess, you don't fit any of the aesthetics that this city offers, even the extremely obscure ones, and honestly, you bug me in a way that I don't believe anyone has ever bugged me before."

"Gee, thanks. Sure makes a girl feel important."

"There is _one last store_ on this list, one last splinter of hope that I might actually make a _girl_ out of you. You'd better not mess it up."

Rachel examined herself in the mirror of the dressing room. Although the past few hours had been _agonizing_ , she had to admit it, Drew had helped her look as close to flawless as the redhead thought she had ever been before. She took a deep breath, smoothing out the wrinkles at the top of the _gorgeous_ (Rachel had never thought she would ever use that word to describe a skirt before) printed maxi-skirt that she was currently trying on in the dressing room of one of the stores Drew had forced her into. Slowly, Rachel pulled her hair tie out of her fiery hair, letting the flaming curls spill out. Her hair had grown in the past year, now falling slightly past her pale, freckled shoulders and down her back. She made a model-esque face in the mirror and then laughed. When was the last time she had looked in the mirror and cared about how she looked, much less found herself beautiful?

"Come on out, loser," Drew called from behind the thick dressing room door. Her tone was mocking, but Rachel had noticed throughout the day that the mocking tone was filled with the ease of friendship, rather than the annoyance that the daughter of Aphrodite had held in regards to the redhead earlier that morning. Rachel stepped out.

Drew smirked; the closest thing she had had to a smile the entire day. "You actually look… nice, for once," she announced, although Rachel could tell that the girl standing in front of her was trying hard not to be pleased that not only did she like the skirt, she also looked absolutely fantastic in it.

Rachel grinned in response. "Thanks. First of all, I'd like to thank my parents for forcing me to spend the day—"

Drew cut her off. "Okay, okay, you don't need to get so worked up. I said you look nice, it's not like you just won America's Next Top Model or something like that."

"Well I consider it quite an accomplishment," Rachel said, still grinning. Rachel turned away from her shopping companion towards the three mirrors that were outside the stalls of the dressing rooms. Suddenly, she had an overwhelming desire for Percy to see her like this. She would bet Annabeth never wore anything like _this_. Maybe she would finally get Percy to look at her as a girlfriend and not a _girl friend_.

 _But Annabeth's kissed him,_ a little voice in the back of her head chimed in. It was like a punch to the gut. Every single time that she tried to imagine a future where her and Percy were like _together_ together, she was always somehow reminded that Annabeth had kissed Percy and she, unfortunately, had not.

Rachel felt a sort of determination rise up inside her. She was gorgeous. She was smart. She was talented. She would even the score somehow. She did not exactly know how or when she was going to make it happen. She was going to get her kiss with Percy by the end of the school year. Wait… she… she was thinking a lot like the spoiled daughters of her father's clients. She shook her head, clearing her mind and letting her mane of red curls rise and fall around her. Sure, she looked good in the skirt, but that was no reason for her to think like _that_.

"Careful," Drew taunted from behind her. "Thinking about boys when you're shopping will ruin your good mood."

Rachel immediately spun around, completely shocked at her words. Was being psychic one of the powers of a daughter of Aphrodite? "How did you know what I was thinking?"

"Sweetheart, it was written all over your face. There's just this I'm-thinking-about-Percy-Jackson look that I would recognize from a mile away; I've seen it like a bajillion times."

"You mean on Annabeth?" She asked, dubious.

"Please, honey, every other new kid at camp has worn that expression, at least, until they hear about Annabeth, and then their fear is more powerful than his good looks."

"She's not _that_ scary," Rachel countered.

Drew snorted. "She's been going easy on you, hasn't she?"

"I would hardly call it easy." Rachel relayed the story of how the first time she'd ever really spoken the blonde girl, she'd talked about playing dumb to the teachers at Goode when they'd asked about the band room and Annabeth had asked _was it hard_ , as if to insinuate that Rachel was dumb.

"Yeah, she's been going easy on you," the other girl cut in, smirking. "You should've seen my half-brother, Tony, after Annabeth was done with him."

"You mean guys like Percy too?"

"Guys, girls, immortal titanesses. It's actually quite nice that your boyfriend is so oblivious, or else he'd have a bigger head than Ares." Rachel suddenly heard a large clap of thunder. Drew rolled her eyes and started shouting at the dressing room ceiling. "Oh come on, you know it's true." She turned back to the redhead. "It also doesn't help that my _wonderful_ mother has decided to take a special interest in him. I'm pretty sure she's given him one of her minor blessings, what with all of my fellow campers falling in love with him at first sight."

Rachel had turned back to face the mirror, and now she laughed at her kind-of-friend, loving the way her smile looked in the mirror. "Okay, now you're just joking."

"Maybe I am. You're too good for him anyways."

"Thanks for the optimism, but I think I'm going to stick with him for now."

"So are you going to buy the skirt or not?"

Rachel rolled her eyes, turning back to the daughter of Aphrodite. "What do _you_ think?"

"Good, because it makes you look hot."

"I know."

"Just promise me one thing: you will not buy this nor wear this skirt specifically for Percy Jackson under _any_ circumstances."

"I promise," Rachel sighed, slightly exasperated. "I doubt he'd be able to handle how hot it makes me look anyways."

This time, Drew really did laugh. "Please, he wouldn't know hot if it hit him in the eye with a blue plastic hairbrush."

"You know about that?"

"Please, sweetheart," Drew started, waving a perfectly manicured hand as if to brush aside the question. "I know everything." This time, Rachel was the one to laugh.

Then Rachel paused, suddenly remembering her blackout from earlier that day. "Um, have you ever heard of Orthrys?"

She got her reaction just by the way that the daughter of Aphrodite stiffened, clutching her designer handbag closer to her. Drew's eyes suddenly got guarded, even though they had been full of humor just seconds earlier. She pulled the redhead close to her by the wrist, her nails digging into Rachel's pale, skinny arm. "Don't you ever say that name again, you hear me? That name is bad luck for demigods, and if I ever _ever_ hear you say it again, I swear on my mother I will hunt you down. Understand, hon?"

Rachel nodded, suddenly way more terrified of the daughter of Aphrodite than she ever had been before. With all the eyeliner and shopping bags, she had forgotten that this girl, although being a rich and famous socialite of the greater New York City area, had been trained to kill. Sure, she knew mortals were mostly off limits for demigods to even touch, in fact celestial bronze just slid right through them without causing any damage whatsoever, but still, she doubted Drew would have that hard of a time getting a mortal weapon in her hands.

The redhead tried to lighten the mood by turning the conversation back to the magnificent skirt again, but Drew only smiled a half-smile, her eyes glassed over in fear. They lightened up eventually, as the two girls made their way down Madison Avenue together, arm in arm. The daughter of Aphrodite wasn't actually that bad, Rachel thought, and maybe she would enjoy hanging out with her a little more as the days went on. Maybe Drew would stop asking to be paid to hang out with her. Nevertheless, Rachel suspected that, although the blackouts would heighten as Kronos got closer to the city, and despite the fact that she was grounded from seeing Percy again for months, she might actually enjoy herself for a while.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Dude, see here's the weird thing," Travis Stoll started, "like I was totally telling Connor that you were totally going to be super mad when you found out, and Conner was like yeah Annabeth's going to blow her rocket when she finds out, so we should totally go see her face when she does, and that guy recognized your name. Dude, I think he knows you!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part II: The Fall  
> "Here too it's masquerade, I find / As everywhere, the dance of mind / I grasped a lovely masked procession / And caught things from a horror show… / I'd gladly settle for a false impression / If it would last a little longer though"  
> -Johan Wolfgang von Goethe  
> "I didn't care who kissed you first as long as I kissed you last."  
> -Rachel Vail, If We Kiss

**Annabeth IV**

Annabeth groaned as she saw who was approaching her. She could tell just by their matching red sneakers who they were, and she was honestly not that prepared to deal with yet another crazy drama at camp.

"Dude!" Both Conner and Travis Stoll ran up to her, their curly brown heads bouncing in the air like overexcited small dogs. "I don't even know how, but it finally worked! WE SUCCESSFULLY ORDERED PIZZA!" Annabeth immediately felt dread in her stomach as she looked down at the hands of the Stolls, which were currently filled with gooey, cheesy, almost plastic-looking classic New York pizza.

"Come on," she told them, putting one hand on each of their backs and spinning them around to face Half Blood Hill. "Time for you two to explain yourselves, or at least to help that poor man get home without being mentally scarred for life."

"Dude, see here's the weird thing," Travis Stoll started, "like I was totally telling Connor that you were totally going to be super mad when you found out, and Conner was like yeah Annabeth's going to blow her rocket when she finds out, so we should totally go see her face when she does, and that guy recognized your name. Dude, I think he knows you!" Annabeth was not pleased to hear that.

"Come on," Conner Stoll gestured towards the circle of cabins. "He's probably still sitting on the steps of our cabin, 'cause there's like no way we can pay him, Hades, we didn't even think he was coming. After the first few tries, it's mostly been just for fun, to see the pizza place's reactions when their delivery guys tell them this place doesn't exist, but this dude, I'm telling you, he's super weird."

Sure enough, a guy was sitting on the front porch of the Hermes cabin. For a second, Annabeth stopped dead in her tracks; he was sitting exactly the way _Luke_ used to… but it could not be... could it? It was not. As she approached, she noticed that the guy had darker skin than Luke; it was closer to the color of red clay. His hair was blonde, but it had obviously been bleached that way, and it didn't exactly look amazing. Sure enough, he held in his right hand a red messenger bag that read in white lettering: "Carlo's Pizza: If You Don't Love It, We Don't Love You." He was sitting in a manner much too carefree for someone who was looking over towards kids racing lava on a climbing wall. Annabeth was immediately suspicious.

"What are you doing here?"

" _Annabeth?"_ he asked. She recognized his voice. "I'm delivering pizza, what are _you_ doing here? Are you a demigod too?"

The daughter of Athena turned to glare at the Stolls. "Could you give us a minute?" She asked them, her voice practically seeping with annoyance. They scampered off, their tails between their legs.

"Call me Jeff," the very lost pizza delivery guy told her, putting forward one of his red-clay hands for her to shake.

Annabeth still had her hood up to protect her from the blizzard, but once she entered the camp's boundary, there was no reason to keep it up, since the only snow in camp was on the ground. She stood face to face with Jeff on the splintered wooden steps of the Hermes cabin, examining their reflection in the slightly tinted windows. Annabeth pulled her hood down, letting her golden curls spill out into the freezing winter air.

"Whoa!" Jeff exclaimed. "You're a girl?" She gave him a glare. "Umm," He started rubbing his neck with his left hand, "You _are_ a girl, right?"

Annabeth smiled back politely, slightly confused as to whether or not she should be offended by his question. "Yeah," she said. "I'm a girl."

Jeff immediately started blushing, a dark pink spreading across his face. "Not that you look like a boy or anything… I mean, of course you don't. You're totally not boy-like, unless you were a really girly boy, but of course you're not. You're too pretty to be a boy! How could I not see that?"

This time, Annabeth's smile was real. A pink flush reached her cheeks as the really lost pizza delivery guy continued rambling on.

"So you think I'm pretty?" She smirked, enjoying the attention. Jeff's pink cheeks turned red, and Annabeth suddenly felt ten times more confident than she had when she had arrived at camp. "Come on, I'll take you to Chiron and we'll see how on Earth you were able to enter camp." They started walking towards the Big House, and then Annabeth decided to stop and turn back around to Jeff. "Just for clarification… how much did the Stolls tell you?"

He nodded in response, "Pretty much everything." Annabeth cursed the mischievous brothers.

"Chiron's not going to be happy about that…" she muttered to herself, grabbing Jeff's wrist and continuing on to the Big House.

He was in there for quite a while. For a few terrifying minutes, Annabeth considered the possibility that Chiron had murdered him for knowing about demigods. Yet, he had not done it with Rachel. She slightly wished that was the policy. Not for poor Jeff's sake, of course, but, you know, things just might be a little less complicated if—

She heard the door to the Big House creak open. Jeff came out, thankfully not murdered. He had a look of confusion on his face that she recognized, and as he sauntered out of the old house, Annabeth felt a sudden sense of nostalgia. She would have to talk to him eventually about recognizing him.

"So what are you?" Jeff asked upon emerging from the Big House onto its porch. "A daughter of Aphrodite or something?" Annabeth blushed, shocked at his compliment; she had never been compared to one of the gorgeous daughters of the goddess of love and beauty before.

"No, I'm a child of Athena. Sorry to disappoint you."

"You sure?" The really lost pizza delivery guy asked, looking her up and down. "Because you're _definitely_ hot enough to be one."

"You don't mean that," she responded with a smirk, wanting to give him a small nudge with her shoulder like she would do with Percy, but for some reason her mind told her _no, that would be wrong_.

They continued away from the Big House and towards the canoe lake, as Jeff responded. "Well, I mean, I may be biased since we _did_ go to the Snowflake Dance together in 8th grade." The daughter of Athena laughed in response, remembering how geeky and awkward he had been. She had barely recognized him when she had first seen him sitting on the steps of the Hermes cabin. It was only when he had said her name, in the exact same way that he had said it in 8th grade, that she had finally matched his name with his face.

Annabeth hadn't _wanted_ to go to the 8th grade winter dance; she'd wanted to stay in her room and study for finals, but her school friends (who were really all two-faced and fake) had coerced her to go with Kevin Jefferson, who had asked her so nicely. Why he now went by an abbreviation of his last name, she had no idea.

They walked for a bit, before stopping at the canoe lake. She did not know why she stopped there, but it had always given her a sense of calm, and right now she needed to be calm if she was going to face an old classmate actually being a demigod. She had to admit, she could not even begin to comprehend how she had not noticed it while they'd been going to class together.

Jeff was actually pretty attractive, Annabeth noted, although the gaggle of girls hiding behind the trees near them really should have been enough to tip her off about that fact. She was still raging from Drew's actions to Silena and the fact that her and Percy had been out together on what had looked like a date up until the wee hours of the night. She had been experiencing enough jealousy for the past year than she was almost able to handle, and this just felt like a fatal blow. Didn't he _know_ how much they hated each other? Ugh, he was so oblivious sometimes. Her eye caught on her reflection in the lake; blond curls and smoky grey eyes standing next to the still-very-lost, and very confused slightly attractive pizza delivery guy, and something clicked inside her head.

She had heard one of the more prone-to-gossip sons of Aphrodite talking about how Drew had been forced by her father to hang out with none other than Rachel Dare for the day. Gossip was an effective tool to make people, specifically Percy Jackson, jealous, and it was the tool that Annabeth Chase intended to take full advantage of today. She was done with always being the one on the receiving end of jealousy: She had been jealous of Luke and Thalia, of Luke and Silena, of Percy and Rachel, of Percy and Calypso, and now of Percy and Drew. When did it get to be _his_ turn?

Something suddenly came into Annabeth's mind. It was a devious plan alright, and probably harmless, but it gave her confidence to even think about doing something like that. It wasn't a crime to flirt a little, was it? Most of the daughters of Aphrodite did it all the time, and they usually never got a bad reputation for it. Anyway, it wasn't like her and Jeff were _complete_ strangers; they had gone to the 7th grade winter dance together, after all, and he _had_ been her first slow dance. Maybe if she continued the escapade for long enough word would begin to reach Percy…

Things went smoothly for the first few hours, as awkward small talk slowly turned to flirty banter. Annabeth made sure that her wit was quick and her body language practically oozing hormones. However, things started to get surprising after the nightly campfire sing-along.

The song had been about Artemis and Santa, to the tune of the Christmas carol, "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer." He had sat on her right side at the campfire, with Silena and Clarisse and Beckendorf on her left. She felt slightly uncomfortable every time their skin brushed, although it wasn't very often because pretty much everyone was wearing a light jacket of some kind. She brushed the feelings of discomfort away quickly though, remembering her mission. So Annabeth sang the stupid song and brushed hands with Jeff too many times for them all to have been an accident, and decided she really just wanted to get back to her cabin.

That did not happen, however, because Jeff had walked her back to her cabin on his way to the Hermes cabin; where he would be staying until he was claimed. They stopped at the door, and he started to joke, "You remember that party that Sarah threw at the end of the year?"

"Yeah…" Annabeth responded, treading carefully. She knew she had not gone to that party; she had gone to camp as soon as school had gotten out, but she _had_ been invited, although she had respectfully declined, pretty sure at the time that Sarah was a monster.

"Well, there was this game there, some sort of kissing game, I forget which one it was, and I remember I just kept thinking that I wished you were there, because I knew that Joey, who was in charge of the game, would make sure I kissed you, but you never showed up."

"Sorry," Annabeth tried for a laugh, although the conversation was quickly going to places that she did not want it to go. "I was at camp." She gestured around, towards the cabins and the campfire, from where they had just come.

He laughed, probably not faking it, and responded "Yeah, I understand that now. I'm sure you'll understand when I do this then." He paused for a moment before leaning over and kissing her. She was not sure what she had expected. Still, was this some sort of weird payback for her not being at that party?

It wasn't a real kiss or anything, just a peck on the lips, but Annabeth was shocked, nonetheless. She had not really expected things to go this far, and she wasn't totally sure how to explain the situation to herself, much less Jeff or her cabinmates. Luckily, Jeff quickly walked away before Annabeth could do much more than process the fact that he'd just kissed her. She walked to her bunk, dazed, and ignoring the stink-eye that a few of her fellow cabinmates, who had just seen the kiss, were giving her. Jeff was probably lucky that Athena had not blasted him to smithereens. Perhaps the goddess enjoyed seeing her daughter take advantage of a boy.

She lay in her bunk that night and stared at the ceiling of the Athena cabin, lost in thought. He had tried to kiss her once before, she remembered, at the 8th grade winter dance. Usually, Annabeth tried to repress memories like this; ones that would either make her cringe or make her cry. Currently, even she was not sure which one of those this memory was, only that it was bad and should probably not be purposefully located in the cave of her subconscious where it had been hiding for years.

She had been wearing a green dress, she remembered that. It was a gift from her step-mother in San Francisco, who was trying to get Annabeth to come home for the Christmas vacation. She was supposed to wear the dress for her father's annual Christmas Party, where he would invite historians and aviation-enthusiasts from around the area, and present his children and his wife to them, along with his dream of one day re-enacting a battle from World War II. Instead, being the rebellious teenage girl she was, Annabeth had worn it to the winter dance. It was dark satin, with sleeves that went down to her elbows, and a white sash. She almost smirked remembering how she had tried to make sure someone, anyone, spilled soda or punch on that dress. Unfortunately, no one had.

Jeff had worn a grey blazer over a blue and white checked shirt and a bow-tie. Even now, she remembered him nervously stuttering something about how he had purposefully chosen grey because it matched her eyes. Even now, she remembered her so-called friends glancing over at the two of them and giggling. Even now, she remembered wishing her friends would choke on their punch, or at least spill some on their dresses. She may or may not have purposefully dumped soda on their heads later that night. He had asked her to dance to the song My Love by Justin Timberlake, and Annabeth remembered some rant she'd given to him about how stupid it was that guys had to ask _girls_ to dances and how really all of that should change, and no she didn't mean that the student council should plan a Sadie Hawkins dance.

It really was amazing that the bumbling idiot of a boy that had asked her to dance a year ago had turned so suave and flirtatious. Annabeth wondered what had happened. What happened to the boy with glasses and a bow tie who tried so hard to get Annabeth to pay even a little attention to him the night of the 8th grade winter dance? What had happened to the boy who waited patiently on the bleachers of the gym as his date blew him off to go stab one of the student teachers with a celestial bronze blade and watch her explode into powder as he sat there and wondered if she'd ever come back from the bathroom? What could have possibly happened in the past two years to turn him into _this_?

That was not the part about that night that bugged her though, it was the fact that she had stood there and watched, helpless even with a celestial bronze blade in her hand, as Colton Yetzi had beat him up. You cannot fight mortal bullies with a dagger made to kill monsters. You can't stab girls in the back with celestial bronze as they stab you in the back with words. Even if you try with all your might, you cannot stop a bully with a weapon that cannot harm them. Annabeth had _known_ that that night. She _knew_ if she intervened, she might have made things worse for the both of them. Why did she still feel so guilty though? The girls had gotten what they deserved that night, despite the boys not quite getting their revenge. The girls who had convinced Annabeth to come had gotten soda in their curled hair, and the girls who had laughed as Kevin Jefferson was beat to pulp had small traces of superglue placed in their shampoo bottles. No one ever suspected sweet, honors student Annabeth Chase. Not even Kevin Jefferson. No one had realized what she had done to help him.

They'd never seen Ms. Kelley, the student teacher, after that night. In fact, everybody seemed to forget about her, except for Kevin, but he'd suffered mildly severe head trauma that night (to be specific, his skull had been rammed into the bleachers), so everyone just assumed for the rest of the semester that he just wasn't remembering things clearly, after all, his date's dress _had_ been Kelley Green. Annabeth had not stuck around long enough at the end of the semester to find out how much he really remembered, or if he had seen that she'd held a bronze knife in her hand and watched him get beaten to a pulp, not even lifting a finger to help.

She tried to push the memories away as she attempted to fall asleep, tried to get them back into that deep, dark cave of her subconscious where they had been before. Yet, even as they retreated, Annabeth felt an extreme wave of guilt wash over her. She would have to ask him in the morning if he remembered the knife. No, she shouldn't do that, he'd probably like to remember that awful night just has much as she did.

Annabeth went to sleep that night and dreamed of green eyes as deep as the ocean. She dreamed of chocolate chip cookies and a spoon in a mug of coffee. As she pawed through her dreams the next morning, Annabeth was frankly shocked that the kiss had had little-to-no effect on her subconscious.

The second day that Jeff was at camp, he called her over and they talked for a while, but Annabeth's mind kept drifting back to the clear and solid fact that he'd kissed her the previous night. She had not had much experience with kissing before; just a few spin the bottle games and a few school parties, and… of course, there was Mount Saint Helens, and she was not totally sure how she felt about it. She did know, however, when she thought about it, she wanted _more_. She just wanted a real tongue-twisting, fingers-running-trough-hair kiss. She didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

Of course, her visions of kissing had turned her voice sultry and made her eyelashes fluttery, which did not go unnoticed by Jeff, who responded by moving closer into her personal space. They were in a slightly closed-off area; a clearing in the woods that had once been used for that annual game of red rover (that is, until the monsters that lived in the forest decided they wanted to join the game too), and Annabeth was positive no one was watching them, yet for some reason, she still felt like two dogs were fighting inside her stomach; one telling her to kiss him and one telling her to not. However, she did not have to make the choice, because he leaned over and pushed their lips together before she could even _think_ about doing it herself.

He was good at kissing; that she couldn't deny. She wondered what had happened to geeky Kevin in the past year and a half to make him this… different. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he put his hands on her waist, pulling her close to him. It was nice, Annabeth decided, not as electric or passionate as she had imagined, but… nice. She ignored the part of her brain that told her that sparks should be flying and her mind should be mush. She ignored the visions of sea-deep green eyes and a laugh that almost broke her heart. Wasn't it wrong to think about someone else when… this was going on? What even _was_ going on?

"Careful," she smirked as she pulled away, "you haven't been claimed yet, for all we know you could be my half-sibling, and I doubt my immortal mother would be happy about that."

He smiled a crooked smile at her. "That's a risk I'm willing to take. Besides, do I really look like I could be your brother?"

It was true; most of the children of Athena had blonde hair and grey eyes. They appeared on anyone, regardless of race or skin-tone, which made some pretty exquisite-looking Athena campers. One of her brothers had ebony skin with the hair and eye combination, and although he was a child of Athena, not Aphrodite, his interesting complexion made him attract quite a lot of people. Jeff, however, lacked the one thing all children of Athena had in common: the stormy grey eyes that crackled like a thunderstorm when they got upset. Things would be so much easier if he was her brother. I mean, sure, it would be extremely awkward at first, but it would explain why she felt so wrong every time she kissed him. Why she felt like maggots were eating the inside of her stomach every time he looked at her with his dark eyes.

Annabeth pondered this for a while in her cabin. Not really coming out for most of that day after the encounter with Jeff. She was not totally sure she wanted to face him. She was not totally sure she wanted to explain why she, in all truthfulness, was almost disgusted every time they kissed yet she constantly craved more. She was not totally sure if she truly even wanted to kiss anyone at all.

One of her cabin-mates burst through the mahogany doors of the Athena cabin at about 3:23 that day. Annabeth noted that it was Sophia, one of the girls who'd been giving her the stink-eye the night before. She nearly jumped out of her seat by the wall of bookshelves as the doors were slammed open. Sophia looked extremely troubled.

"I'm sorry, Annabeth. I'm so sorry. I-I was looking for Jeff, you know, the pizza guy that you kissed, and I-I saw him with this… this awful water spirit and… I'm so sorry." It took a moment for Annabeth to fully process what her half-sister was telling her.

The feelings that came when she finally did discover what she meant were a mix of betrayal and heartbreak on one side and relief and anger on the other. Of course, being the hot-headed girl that she was, however, Annabeth marched over to the same clearing in the woods that she'd kissed Jeff that morning and, indeed, found him arm-around-waist, tongue-on-tongue kissing one of the water nymphs who lived around camp. She could not remember if the nymph was a river nymph or a creek nymph or even a puddle nymph, however, because she was nearly blinded by anger.

"JUST WHAT IN HADES NAME DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING KEVIN JEFFERSON?" She yelled, as hard as her voice could bear. They immediately jumped apart, the water nymph landing on the hard ground and Jeff not even bothering to help her up, not even extending a hand.

"Look, Annabeth, sweetheart. Things change when you move. You can't really expect me to be with only one girl with a body like this. If you're going to get mad at someone, get mad at _her_ ," Jeff pointed to the water nymph he had just been kissing, who was blushing a shade of indigo and who was currently staring at the floor. "I mean, just look at that skirt; she was totally asking for it." Annabeth did look, the water nymph's skirt, which was most likely made out of water, only went down to her knees. She immediately felt disgusted; he was treating both of them like appliances to be used only for his pleasure, as if they did not exist when he was not around them.

The blonde didn't know what to say. How often had she been warned that something like this would happen? She felt tears at the corners of her eyes, and anger behind them, but she kept both inside of her, trying to think of something, _anything_ to do or say. She was extremely broken on the inside, but no one could know that. She needed to be tough, strong Annabeth Chase who did _not,_ under any circumstances, cry over a boy. Except for that one time when everybody thought he was dead. That was the exception. Everybody understood that exception… right?

Annabeth spat at him. "You make me sick." Deep inside, however, she felt an almost overwhelming amount of sadness. The first guy who actually seemed to like her _like that_ had been just using her for who knows what reason. Adding this to what Luke had done, Annabeth felt like she may never be able to trust a guy again.

 _You are forgetting something._ Her brain told her. _There is still someone you trust_. She pushed the thought out of her mind as her feet crunched on the frozen fallen leaves that littered the grounds of the camp and she headed towards her cabin. Hopefully it was deserted, maybe then she could finally cry. She had been fighting her emotions since the summer, knowing that they were at war now, and she needed to put on a brave face for the rest of the campers. She just needed someone to tell her it was okay to cry. Suddenly, the direction of her steps changed.

Annabeth walked slowly up to the wooden door, taking a deep breath to try and calm her nerves. Tears were still streaming down her face, and she did not bother trying to wipe them away, seeing as they just kept coming. She hesitated for a moment, before shakily knocking her knuckles against the door. She had to wait only a moment, although it seemed like an eternity before it was opened.

The cold winter air bristled around her as she waited there. She was shaking, she knew that, but not from the cold, possibly from sadness… or anger… or fear that she would be turned away as soon as the door opened. She twisted her fingers in her hands, full of anxiety and deep sadness. She almost jumped when the door was opened and a familiar voice called out to her.

"Annabeth?"

"I'm sorry. I-I just really need my best friend right now." She collapsed into Percy's arms and let her tears pour onto his shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annabeth may have been slightly more OOC here than I would've liked her to be, so sorry for that.  
> Also, I can totally make the Stolls surfer dudes if I want to.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her eyes glazed with something… was it anger, or fear, or worry? "Don't you say it. Don't you dare say it Percy, especially not today, not after what's happened. I won't believe you if you do, not today. Just hold me and let me cry, okay?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part II: The Fall  
> "Here too it's masquerade, I find / As everywhere, the dance of mind / I grasped a lovely masked procession / And caught things from a horror show… / I'd gladly settle for a false impression / If it would last a little longer though"  
> -Johan Wolfgang von Goethe  
> "I didn't care who kissed you first as long as I kissed you last."  
> -Rachel Vail, If We Kiss

**Percy V**

Percy knew his mom and Paul were in the dining room writing together, and he really did _not_ want them to see Annabeth in such a vulnerable state, so he brought her into his bedroom for almost the exact opposite reason of any _other_ teenage boy bringing a vulnerable girl into their bedroom. At least they wouldn't have his parents spying on them in there.

"Okay, okay, what's wrong," he asked softly, trying to calm down his crying best friend. She seemed to hear him, but her tears kept coming, and an answer, unfortunately, did not. Eventually, however she did start to talk, and as she relayed the story of Jeff, the very lost pizza delivery guy, Percy could feel his anger grow.

"Why would you even _do_ that?" Percy asked, outraged. "You barely even _knew_ him!"

"Well _maybe_ I just wanted someone to actually _appreciate_ me and tell me I was pretty, because sometimes a girl needs those kind of things, and in case you haven't noticed, guys aren't exactly lining up to date me!"

"Are you telling me you need a random _pizza delivery guy_ to tell you you're gorgeous so you can believe it? I thought you were better than that! I thought you knew how important you are…" Percy trailed off, realizing what he was going to say and stopping himself before he could regret it.

"So what if I do?" Annabeth retorted. "I'm not as perfect as everybody thinks I am! I can't live up to everybody's crazy standards. Maybe sometimes I just want someone to tell me that it's okay; I don't need to try so hard to be as great as I come off to be, and that I'm good enough just the way I am."

Percy's voice softened. "Annabeth, you're good enough just the way you are."

Annabeth's cheeks flushed pink, and she reached up one of her hands to wipe away some of the tears that were cascading down her cheeks. She started to stand up. "You know what," she started, her voice suddenly quiet and timid, "this was a bad idea. I-I should go." Annabeth reached to grab her bag and then turned towards the door of Percy's bedroom.

"Wait!" Percy grabbed her arm, not wanting her to go. This had become such a familiar pattern to them; her storming out of his apartment, leaving him only with her scent and an empty hole inside his chest. Percy was fed up with watching her walk away from him. He was done with letting her get away from him. Annabeth jumped at his touch, obviously surprised that he wanted her to stay.

"Percy," she chided, a sad tone filling her voice.

"No. I am _not_ letting you walk out that door in tears again."

"Percy—"

"We are going to work this out _here and now_."

"Percy, I'm going to have to leave _eventually_ , you know."

"Annabeth, you're my best friend…"

"Besides Grover."

"Yeah, besides Grover. Anyways, you're my best friend and I don't want to lose you, whether it's to some jerk-bag pizza delivery guy or you being angry at me. Just please, tell me why in Zeus' name you're mad at me."

Annabeth's eyes darkened. "If you don't know by now, I'm not going to tell you." She turned to leave again, but Percy kept his grip firm on her arm.

"Annabeth…" He looked up at her, staring hard into her tear-filled grey eyes.

"Fine!" She nearly shouted, obviously exasperated. " _Are you dating the demon of the Aphrodite Cabin or not_?"

"Who?" Percy asked, cocking his head to the side.

" _Drew Tanaka._ " She growled in response.

"No! Why would you think that?"

"You were out late into the night together in formal wear. _What was I_ supposed _to think_?"

"Well, obviously, we'd just finished doing yet another god's dirty work!"

"How was I supposed to know that? It's not like you tell me _anything_ anymore! I wouldn't know if you did get a girlfriend or if you liked a girl or anything like that, _not that I would care_ ," she added almost as an afterthought. "To Hades with that; I _would_ care, you Kelp Head, but you're always too preoccupied to even notice and you _never_ tell me _anything_ now and—"

Her voice died off when Percy kissed her. He halfway missed her lips, just his luck, but the fiery electricity he had remembered feeling from Mount Saint Helens still coursed through his body, turning his blood to lava and his brain to mush.

He felt Annabeth stiffen up, then slowly one of her hands lifted up from her side and she ran her fingers through his hair. Then, of course, being the beautiful, wonderful person she was, her other hand grabbed his head too and they repositioned so he was actually kissing her. This kiss was different, slow and sad and caring, whereas the one in the summer had been hasty and passionate. Percy was just processing that Annabeth was actually _kissing him back_ , when she pulled away, tears still coming out of her sparkling eyes. She started to sob in to his shoulder again, and he held her close, as only the best of friends would.

Percy could feel his heartbeat against hers. He cautiously took one of his hands from off of her waist and used it to lift her chin up so their eyes once again met. "Hey, hey, it's going to be okay. I'm here for you, I—"

Her eyes glazed with something… was it anger, or fear, or worry? "Don't you say it. Don't you _dare_ say it Percy, especially not today, not after what's happened. I won't believe you if you do, not today. Just hold me and let me cry, okay?"

Percy nodded and they continued holding each other tightly. He could still taste some of her salty tears, which had dripped into his mouth when he had kissed her. What had the kiss even meant? Percy felt like he was walking on thin ice; Any minute, it could crack and he would fall through. Was there even such a thing as a friendly kiss? Were they even friends? What did you even call a relationship like this? Aphrodite had agreed to leave him alone, and yet, he already felt more confused than ever, and it didn't help that Annabeth, who, at the moment, was still fragile and broken, wouldn't let him say what he wanted to. He didn't understand why— well actually he did – but if he could just say it, everything would be much less complicated and the thin ice wouldn't be the only thing under their feet.

Finally, she pulled away from him for real, she grabbed her bag and headed towards the door, and Percy made no move to stop her. He just made his way with her towards the small door of their apartment, making sure she did not forget anything on her way out. He didn't say any of the words that she had forbidden him to say, and it hurt him like a jackhammer to the heart.

As she was going to leave, Annabeth turned back to him, her blonde curls swinging in the air. She shakily smiled, even though her face and eyes were still red from crying. "Next time, get it right, okay Seaweed Brain?" Then she left, and Percy could hear her footsteps echoing down the hallway. _Next time._ There would be a next time, and he would be sure to get it right.

Percy turned to the kitchen/dining room area of their apartment, where his mother and Paul were still eating dinner and probably working on their books. Suddenly, he felt an insatiable craving for blue chocolate chip cookies.

_Just please don't say you love me_

_'Cause I might not say it back_

_Doesn't mean my heart stops skipping_

_When you look at me like that_

-Please Don't Say You Love Me by Gabrielle Aplin

**This story is dedicated to Kevin R. Jefferson, unclaimed demigod, who died during the Second Titan War, trying to rescue hostages from the Titan Lord Kronos' army. He washed up on the beaches of Camp Half Blood after being killed by an Empousa, who was then later killed by daughter of Aphrodite, Lacey McMillan. He will live forever in our hearts. Rest in Peace, Kevin. May you be forever getting lost delivering pizzas in the fields of Asphodel.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the end. What a wild ride... huh? I'd love to hear your feedback on how you feel about this story and how it turned out.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to hear any and all of your feedback.


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